Research Assistant
Utah State University
Bio:
Sharon is an M.S. student in Ecology and a Research Assistant at Utah State University, studying shorebird populations across the Intermountain West of the USA and interested in wildlife, management, and conservation. Her previous work has focused on shorebirds in Chile, where she led biological monitoring and contributed to public policy planning and implementation of measures to address pressing issues that threaten their populations throughout their annual cycles. Sharon has a B.S. in Natural Resources Engineering from the University of Chile and is a Coastal Solutions Senior Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Before joining USU, she coordinated the Waterbirds and Wetlands Program at ROC, a Chilean NGO, engaging scientists, land managers, and communities around bird conservation. Sharon co-led the development and drafting of the first Chilean Shorebirds Conservation Action Plan and is a member of the Board of the National Bird Conservation Strategy in Chile.
Title: The Data Is In: What five years of counting shorebirds across the Pacific Flyway has taught us
Abstract: Beginning in August 2022, a large partnership of organizations across the Intermountain West including National Audubon Society, Sageland Collaborative and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, conducted a region-wide census of migratory shorebirds every fall and spring migration at over 200 sites across 11 states. This monumental effort, the Intermountain West Shorebird Surveys, seeks to fill a 30-year data gap and has officially wrapped up with its final survey in April 2026. Meaning, the data is in!
Join us to hear about how this new data and information has given us a better understanding of how many shorebirds cross our region, how shorebird abundance has changed in the last 30 years, which sites are most valuable to shorebirds today, and how migration is shifting with a changing water supply. We’ll take the information and apply it to how wildlife managers can prioritize sites for conservation and restoration actions—an especially important tool for Great Salt Lake which supports significant portions of the Pacific Flyway’s shorebird populations.
