CURRICULUM VITAE
ERIC WEIS
www.western-alliance.net/cabriloboy/
cabriloboy@yahoo.com

FIELDWORK EXPERIENCE

The Peregrine Fund, Arizona, April 2004 to present.
Currently employed as a condor field biologist in northern Arizona on The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) Restoration Project.  Duties include: Monitoring and tracking the movements of condors using radio telemetry, GPS units, and four-wheel drive trucks (automatic and manual transmission).  Taking detailed behavioral notes in the field and from blinds of both free-flying and captive condors.  Caring of captive condors.  Public education regarding condor biology and the reintroduction project.  Recapturing and trapping wild condors.  Chelation of recaptured condors that have high lead blood serum levels.  The job also involves much ATV riding, night-hiking, and camping under extreme weather conditions in often remote regions northern Arizona, southern Utah, Grand Canyon National Park, and Zion National Park.  The goal of this project is the re-establishment of self-sustaining wild populations of California Condors in North America and the removal of this species from the endangered species list.

Tambopata Research Center, Madre de Dios, Peru, February to April 2004.
Employed as macaw project volunteer to monitor Scarlet Macaw, Ara Macao, and Green-winged Macaw, Ara chloroptera, nests and to observe the behavior of all psittaciformes at clay licks in the Tambopata-Candamo National Reserve, Peru.  Artificial PVC and wooden nest boxes with macaw nestlings were accessed using climbing equipment (i.e. jumar ascenders, climbing ropes, harnesses, and carabiners).  Nestlings were placed in a bucket and lowered to the ground where weight, wing chord, tarus and culmen length, and the presence of parasites (i.e. botfly larvae and malaphagians) were recorded. Colpa (clay lick) observation data included: The arrival time of each species.  The number of individuals of each species on the colpa at five minute intervals.  The presence of potential predators.  Other duties included: Setting up vegetation study plots.  Auditory and visual point counts of all psittaciformes.  Artificial nest box maintenance.  Behavioral observations of large macaws at these nest boxes.  Foraging observations of psittaciformes.  The goal of this ongoing project is to develop techniques to increase the reproductive success of large macaws in the wild.

Orange County Vector Control District, California, January to May 2000, September to November 2000, August 2001 to February 2002, July to September 2002, and November 2003 to January 2004.
Employed as a field technician to trap and collect blood samples from songbirds, chickens, and rodents for zoonosis analysis, and to trap mosquitoes in Orange County, California.  Australian Crow Traps were used to capture birds which are subsequently taxonomically identified, sexed, bled using fine syringes, and banded before being released. Rodents were collected using Sherman Traps and bled via cardiac puncture.  Mosquito carbon dioxide and oviposition traps were used to collect mosquitoes for taxonomic identification and arbovirus analysis.  Other duties included: Care and maintenance of mosquito fish in outdoor holding ponds.  Seining of mosquito fish from city ponds and drainages for future release in the Spring into the same water basins. Data entry.  Identification of potentially harmful arthropods (i.e. wasps, centipedes, and spiders) for the public.  Water sampling (i.e. pH, salinity, conductivity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen content). The mission of this county agency is to protect the citizens of Orange County from vectors and vector-borne diseases.

HawkWatch International, Nevada, August to October 2003.
Employed as an assistant raptor bander in the Goshute Mountains of eastern Nevada to trap migrating hawks, falcons, and eagles using lure-bird baited mist nets, bow nets, and dho-gaza nets.  Captured raptors were banded, taxonomically identified, aged by plumage, sexed, and morphometrically measured (weight, presence of wing-pit fat, keel muscle evaluation, crop size, wing chord, hallux, tarsus, and culmen length).  Feathers were sampled for future sex determination and hydrogen isotope analysis.  Other duties included care and maintenance of lure birds in outdoor aviaries. The position involved much tent-camping and hiking at high elevation.  The goal of this ongoing project in northeastern Nevada is to monitor long-term trends in migrating raptor populations that utilize the Intermountain Flyway of the North America.

LGL Alaska Research Associates, Inc. and the Wildlife Conservation Society, Alaska, June and July 2003.
Employed as a field research assistant on the North Slope of Alaska to find and monitor shorebird, seabird, and passerine nests on study plots.  Rope drags, walking transects, and behavioral observations were used to locate new nests.  Transect markers and GPS units were used to relocate nests.  Predator surveys and general point counts of all birds detected on the study plots were performed. The position also involved much walking, camping, and data entry at a remote field study site along the shore of the Beaufort Sea, Alaska.  Information from this ongoing study will better elucidate the impacts of oil development on avian fecundity and depredation of birds nesting on the North Slope of Alaska.

Ecostudies Institute, Florida, February to May 2003.
Employed as a field research assistant on a field project that monitored the survivorship of reintroduced and donor populations of Brown-headed Nuthatches, Sitta pusilla, and Eastern Bluebirds, Sialis sialia, in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. Primary responsibilities included nest searching and monitoring using visual surveys and a peeper cam, re-sighting color-banded birds, behavioral observations, mist-netting, bird banding, and vegetation sampling. Territory maps, compass bearings, GPS units, and ATVs were used to relocate nests.  The goal of this project is the re-establishment of self-sustaining populations of these two species within Everglades National Park.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, Arkansas/Missouri, October and November 2002.
Employed as a research assistant to a graduate student to conduct wintering ecology research of the American Woodcock, Scolopax minor, throughout Arkansas, Missouri, and parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma.  Four-wheel drive vehicles were used to drive out to radio-tagged American Woodcock found via aerial radio telemetry.  The birds were then located on the ground using GPS units and radio telemetry and once located were then flushed.  A habitat analysis was performed on the flush site which consisted of vegetation sampling (i.e. vertical densometry, canopy cover type, and tree and plant species identification) and soil sampling (i.e. moisture level and soil type).  Surveys were carried out to find untagged woodcock as well.  The purpose of this study was to better elucidate the fall migration ecology of American Woodcock in the Central Flyway of the United States.

University of Florida, Gainesville, Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department, Florida, March to June 2002.
Employed primarily to assist a graduate student as a field technician in conducting White Ibis, Eudocimus albus, research in the water conservation areas of the Florida Everglades.  Field work was conducted in the water conservation areas of the Florida Everglades and in Everglades National Park.  Duties included: Transporting, launching, and piloting air boats.  Surveying for White Ibis and other wading birds using air boats, GPS units, and fixed wing aircraft.  White Ibis nest searching and monitoring to determine clutch size, the number of chicks, and nest success.  Taking morphometric measurements (weight, wing chord, culmen, and tarsus), bleeding (for sexing), and feather sampling (for mercury analysis) of nestlings.  Fitting radio transmitters onto juveniles.  Radio telemetry from the ground, air boats, and fixed-wing aircraft to determine fledgling survivorship and dispersal patterns.  Data entry.  Adult Anhinga, Anhinga anhinga, trapping using remote-controlled nest traps.  Morphometric analysis, bleeding, and feather sampling of Anhingas and Wood Storks, Mycteria americana.  Fitting satellite/radio transmitters onto juvenile Wood Storks. Visual point counts for all species of wading bird nests.  The main focus of this project was to determine the differential nest success and fledgling survivorship bewteen late and early-nesting pairs of White Ibis in south Florida.

Department of Natural Resources,and HAMER ENVIRONMENTAL, Washington, April to July 2001.
Employed as a seasonal field technician to conduct auditory and visual surveys for the Marbled Murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus.  Compass bearings, grid maps, GIS maps, and four-wheel drive vehicles were used to set up and relocate survey stations.  The job also involved much night-hiking and camping in remote areas and vegetation sampling.  The purpose of this project was to determine the presence or absence of this species in both young and old-growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.

Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve, Jalisco/Colima, México, June to August 1999.
Completed a Center for Tropical Research and National Institute of Health undergraduate internship that included: Seminars in avian, bat, and rodent ecology, and conservation in the Americas.  Estimating population parameters (relative abundance, population density, fecundity, and general survivorship) of birds.  Conducting behavioral observations of birds.  Assessing bird-habitat relationships.  Point and transect counts as well as spot mapping of birds.  Mist-netting for birds in the morning and bats at night.  Rodent trapping using Sherman Traps.  Bird, bat, and rodent processing (i.e. taxonomic keying, sexing, reproductive status, morphometric data, and banding).  Data entry.

LABORATORY WORK EXPERIENCE

George C. Page Museum-La Brea Discoveries, Los Angeles, California, August 2001 to February 2002, and July to September 2002.
Employed as a laboratory volunteer to clean asphalt-laden mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian bones using 1,1,1-trichloroethane and to sort through excavated tar pit matrix for microfossils such as plant debris, insect exoskeletons, and gastropod shell fragments.  Also employed as a volunteer excavator in Pit 91.  Grids measuring 3'X3'X6" were individually excavated.  Recovered bones, wood, and asphaltic sand and clay matrix samples (potentially containing microfossils) were identified and categorized by grid number and by North, South, East, West co-ordinates.  The ongoing paleontological research at this museum is advancing scientific understanding, and public education, of the Los Angeles Basin from 4,000 and 38,000 years ago.

Smithsonian Institution, National Zoo, Molecular Genetics Laboratory, District of Columbia, June to August 2000.
Employed as a Smithsonian Intern to assist Kevin Omland, Ph.D with a postdoctoral research project concerning the evolutionary relationships between five species on orioles (Icterus galbula, I. abeillei, I. pustulatus, I. fuertesi, and I. spurious).  Duties included tissue extractions, DNA purification, DNA replication using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), automated sequencing of the cytochrome b gene and its control region, and data entry.

California State University, Long Beach, Department of Biology, January to May 2000.
Under the guidance of Ray Wilson, Ph.D conducted undergraduate research concerning the phylogenetic relationships among five species of orioles (Icterus galbula, I. abeillei, I. pustulatus, I. fuertesi, and I. spurious) based on their cytochrome b gene sequences.  DNA sequences were downloaded the website Genbank so that a theoretical molecular clock (an estimate of the evolutionary time between two or more taxa) could be constructed based on the number and type of nucleotide differences (the number of transitions versus the number of transversions).

California State University, Long Beach, Department of Biology, August to December 1999.
Employed as an undergraduate laboratory technician to assist a graduate student with his thesis research to find a homologous protein to mammalian Glut-4, a transmembrane glucose transporter, in the Longjaw Mudsucker, Gillichthys mirabilis.  This euryhaline fish is native to the Pacific Coast of the United States and is the focus of much endocrinology research in the laboratory of Kevin Kelley, Ph.D.

California State University, Long Beach, Department of Biology, June to August 1997.
Employed as a Bridges to the Baccalaureate Undergraduate Scholar to perform tissue extractions and protein assays, under the guidance of Steven Manley, Ph.D.  Our research confirmed the hypothesis that the enzyme bromohaloperoxidase is present in the chloroplasts of Sea Lettuce,Ulva anagusta, an intertidal alga found along the Pacific Coast of North America.

COMPUTER EXPERIENCE

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California, June to August 1998.
Employed as a J. Paul Getty Undergraduate Fellowship Intern to build parts of the website pertaining to avian biology at www.lam.mus.ca.us/birds/guide/.

Built personal web site at www.western-alliance.net/cabriloboy/

HTML (Netscape/Mozilla), GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Minitab Biostatistical Analysis, Sequencher DNA Analyzer, Power Point, MicroSoft Excel, and MicroSoft Word.

SCUBA DIVE EXPERIENCE

YMCA (YSCUBA) Open Water Certified 05/20/02

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo, Florida, April and June 2002.

Laguna Beach, California, November 1987.

Catalina Island, California, October 1987

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Cummings, R.F., G. Williams, E. Weis, M. Robinson, A. Milss, R. Havickhorst, T. Su, R. Meyer, and J.P. Webb. 2005. Population dynamics of Culex mosquitoes and adulticiding efficacy at three ecological reserves in Orange County during 2002-2003. Proceedings of the California Mosquito Vector Control Association. 73: 106-109.

Cummings, R.F., S.G. Bennett, C.L. Forgarty, R. Havickhorst, G. Williams, J. Rago, N. Charidas, E. Weis and J.P. Webb. 2000. Evaluation of Mosquito and Arbovirus Activity in Orange County During 2000. Proceedings of the California Mosquito Vector Control Association. 69:83-88.

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Science, General Biology, Minor in Chemistry, May 2000, California State University, Long Beach.

RELEVANT COURSEWORK

General Biology (2 semesters)	General Chemistry (2 semesters)
General Ecology	Organic Chemistry (2 semesters)
Biostatistics	Biological Chemistry (2 semesters)
Evolutionary Biology	Molecular and Cell Biology
Behavioral Ecology	General Genetics
Vertebrate Zoology	General Microbiology
Ornithology	Comparative Animal Physiology
Marine Ornithology	Physical Geology
Taxonomy of the Vascular Plants	Historical Geology
Coastal Systems and Human Impacts	General Physics (2 semesters)
Calculus (2 semesters)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Long Beach City College, California, March 1996 to June 1999.
Employed as a math and science tutor to assist college students with problems in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Statistics, Physics, and Chemistry.

Long Beach Unified School District, Millikan High School, California, November 2000 to March 2001.
Employed as a long-term substitute teacher to instruct Algebra and Pre-algebra to ninth and tenth grade students.

REFERENCES

Donald J. Brightsmith, Research Associate, Research Director of Rainforest Expeditions Duke University Department of Biology 116 Stedwick Place Durham, North Carolina 27712	d j b 4 @ d u k e . e d u (919) 471-0464
Robert Cummings, M.S., Assistant Vector Ecologist Orange County Vector Control District 13001 Garden Grove Blvd. Garden Grove, California 92843	r o b c u m m i n g @ a o l . c o m r c u m m i n g s @ o c v c d .  o r g (714) 971-2421 ext. 138
James P. Webb, Ph.D, Vector Ecologist, Technical Director Orange County Vector Control District 13001 Garden Grove Blvd. Garden Grove, California 92843	j w e b b @ o c v c d . o r g (714) 971-2421 ext. 142
Deneb Sandack, Raptor Bander 925 East 200 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84102	d e n e b s a n @ m s n . c o m (801) 328 4009
Robert Rodrigues, Wildlife Biologist LGL Alaska Research Associates, Inc. 1101 E. 76th Ave, Suite B Anchorage, Alaska 99518	b r o d r i g u e s @ l g l . c o m (907)644-2706
Craig Hohenberger 20 Asoleado Court Carmel Valley, California 93924	c a l i d r i s a l b a @ j p s . n e t (831)-659-7249
Nick Myatt, Master's Candidate University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Department of Biological Sciences Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Fayetteville, Arizona 72701	n m y a t t @ u a r k . e d u n _ m y a t t @ y a h o o . c o m (479) 283-9177
John David Semones, M.S., Wildlife Biologist University of Florida, Gainesville Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation P.O. Box 110430 Gainesville, Florida 32611-0430	j d s e m o n e s @ h o t m a i l . c o m (352) 271-6444 (352) 219-5953
Jennifer Hilburn, Senior Ornithologist Wildlife Conservation Society Survival Center Saint Catherines Island 182 Camellia Road Midway, Georgia 31320	e c o j e n @ w c s . o r g e c o j e n @ y a h o o . c o m (912) 884-5005
Borja Mila, Ph.D University of California, Los Angeles Department of Organismic Biology, Ecology, and Evolution Center for Tropical Research 610 Charles E. Young Dr. South, 1609 Hershey Hall P.O. Box 951606 Los Angeles, California 90095-1606	b m i l a @ u c l a . e d u (310) 825-5014
Jesus E. Maldonado, Ph.D, Research Geneticist Smithsonian Institution Department of Systematic Biology Molecular Genetics Laboratory National Museum of Natural History Washington, District of Columbia 20008	m a l d o n a d o j @ n z p . s i . e d u (202) 673-4606
Shelley Cox, Paleontologist, Laboratory Supervisor Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County George C. Page Museum-La Brea Discoveries 5801 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90036	s c o x @ b c f . u s c . e d u (323) 857-6318
Jim Angus, Website Project Manager National Institute of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke P.O. Box 5801 Bethesda, Maryland 20824	a n g u s j @ n i n d s . n i h . g o v
Charles Collins, Ph.D, Ornithologist California State University, Long Beach 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Long Beach, California 90840-0106	c c o l l i n s @ c s u l b . e d u (562) 985-4813
Greg Williams, Laboratory Associate Northwest Mosquito and Vector Control District 1966 Compton Ave. Corona, California 92881-3318	g a g g l e 1 3 @ y a h o o . c o m (909)340-9792
Kevin Kelley, Ph.D, Endocrinologist California State University, Long Beach 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Long Beach, California 90840-0106	k m k e l l e y @ c s u l b . e d u (562)985-4294
Karine Pezeril, Laboratory Supervisor Assistant, Senior Excavator Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County George C. Page Museum-La Brea Discoveries 5801 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90036	k p e z e r i l @ t a r p i t s . o r g (323)857-6318
Ralph Havickhovst, Biologist 2030 Meriday Lane Santa Ana, California 92706	(714) 543-0771