Featured Scientist

Mia holding a federally endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard (Gambelia sila), helping environmental scientist counterparts from Region 4 with their annual population surveys in West Kern County.


Mia handling San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica) in Bakersfield.


In an effort to control a mange outbreak affecting the kit fox population in Bakersfield, Mia and other scientists were providing a helping hand to do some wellness checks for individual animals.

Mia Roberts is an environmental scientist for CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR). She is part of the Fairfield-based field response team, tasked with responding to oil spills throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She previously worked on the response team in Bakersfield.

Mia began her career with the department as a scientific aid working on the Delta Smelt and Coastal Pelagic Species programs. She then served a brief stint in the private sector, working as a scientist for an environmental consulting firm that specialized in electrical transmission projects. She returned to the department in her current role at OSPR about three years ago.

Mia earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and has diverse professional experience in natural resources management and environmental compliance. She is also a fluent Spanish speaker after spending time studying abroad in Costa Rica.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

My inspiration to pursue a career in natural resources protection came from my mother. She taught me to care for the environment around me, even if that meant picking up one piece of trash a day. She encouraged outdoor play, and many of our family outings were spent outdoors. In addition to my mother, Jane Goodall was (and still is) a powerful role model for me.

What got you interested in working with CDFW?

Not everyone is lucky enough to know what they want to “be” when they grow up, but I had a general idea of what I wanted to do since I was very young, which was to protect animals. My career goals evolved and matured over time as I accumulated professional and life experience, but my core interests have always stayed the same – speaking for the voiceless.

I have worked in private industry, the federal government and in non-profit organizations, but my favorite and most fulfilling work experiences have always been with CDFW. The work I have done, and continue to do, has always aligned with my childhood aspirations of protecting the natural world. I work alongside some amazing people at CDFW, and I have learned so much from them along the way. I hope to continue learning as much as possible with the department while simultaneously contributing to the protection of our state’s beautiful and unique natural resources for future generations.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

Being on the Northern Field Response Team means we are some of the first people on scene during an oil spill. My schedule could be full of oil spill drills, contingency planning and training activities, but it could all be dropped if the team has to respond to an oil spill. I love having a profession where I never know what my day is going to look like, because it keeps me on my toes and I never get bored.

I love working with a team to solve a problem, and being part of the response team provides endless opportunities to do that. Every spill we respond to is different and comes with its own challenges. Our main goal as the field response team is to safely clean up oil spills while causing the least environmental harm. I very much enjoy working with my fellow responders to accomplish that goal.

Over the course of your career, was there a discovery or an incident that surprised you?

My time with OSPR has been full of surprises, but the biggest one so far was learning about the history of oil in California. I had no idea that California played such a large role in oil production for the nation. Seeing the extensive Central California oil fields was a huge eye-opener, and it felt like I was on a whole new planet that I did not know existed. Here was black, sticky oil literally oozing out of the ground from natural seeps! The same seeps that created the tar-pit-death-traps for countless prehistoric creatures! How did I miss this my whole life?

If you had free reign and unlimited funding, what scientific project would you most like to take on?

I would love to train an oil detection dog to aid with oil spill response. Dogs are amazing creatures and can perform many tasks that could benefit the spill response community. Their capacity for scent detection and differentiation could really change the way we respond to oil spills in the state, and the department already has a wonderful infrastructure to support this type of project.

Do you have any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

Get as much experience early on as you possibly can! The competition for entry-level natural resources and science jobs can be fierce, and oftentimes it is that little bit of volunteer time you had at that lab, or the summer you spent doing field work banding birds that can make all the difference.

The field of science is extremely broad, so I would recommend trying to identify the specific job you would like to do and spend your time gaining experience relevant to that position. During college, I spent a lot of my undergraduate time as a research assistant on various research projects, working for graduate students and research labs on campus. These jobs can provide you with the hands-on experience employers look for when hiring for entry-level positions.

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CDFW Photos courtesy of Mia Roberts. Top Photo: Mia Roberts helping perform kangaroo rat surveys in West Kern County with our fellow environmental scientists from Region 4. The animal she is holding is a federally endangered giant kangaroo rat (Dipodomys ingens).

1994, Henkel performing work with Bald Eagles


1995, Henkel performing work with Tufted Puffins


2010, Henkel performing research on Western Grebes


2010, Henkel works on Rhinoceros Auklet restoration project

Laird Henkel is a senior environmental scientist-supervisor with CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), where he serves as director of the department’s Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center (MWVCRC) in Santa Cruz. Laird joined OSPR in 2007 as the statewide oiled wildlife response coordinator. He moved to his current job in 2010. The MWVCRC is the primary care facility for oiled sea otters and serves as a center for research on the health and pathology of sea otters and marine birds.

Laird grew up in Connecticut and moved to California to attend UC Santa Cruz, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in marine science at Moss Landing Marine Labs, where he studied the spatial distribution of marine birds on Monterey Bay. Prior to working for CDFW, Laird worked on a variety of research projects with birds including marbled murrelets and snowy plovers.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

I’ve always been inquisitive, and enjoyed science books as a kid. I also spent quite of bit of time with other kids checking out critters living under rocks, and – probably like most kids – thought  Jacques Cousteau (a famous marine explorer in the 70s and 80s) was awesome. But when I left for UC Santa Cruz, I was not necessarily planning on studying science. A variety of factors led me to major in biology and once I was in, I was hooked. 

What got you interested in working with wildlife?

In college, I took some great natural history classes, including one working with elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Reserve, and an ornithology class, which led me to become fascinated with the lives of animals. The summer before my senior year, I assisted on a project assessing mountain goat behavior related to population size in Idaho, and right after graduating I had a great volunteer job working on a remote island in Alaska monitoring diet and growth of tufted puffins. Field biology was fascinating and a great way to see some amazing places, from Alaska to Maine to Costa Rica.

Who or what brought you to CDFW? What inspires you to stay?

I first worked for CDFW as a scientific aid for Senior Environmental Scientist Rob Titus in 1995, working with winter-run Chinook salmon. That was a short-term position. Then I moved back to Santa Cruz and had a variety of other field jobs with birds, earned a master’s degree in marine science, and worked at an environmental consulting firm for several years. One of my other jobs included conducting aerial surveys for marine birds and mammals under a contract with OSPR. Through that work, OSPR seemed like a great place to work and was in the right place at the right time when my current dream job opened up. I feel lucky to have it. I am inspired to stay because of the great work we do!

What is a typical day like for you at work?

I typically deal with various logistical issues—I’m responsible for my staff and for a complicated (and aging) facility. The facility is set up for oiled wildlife response including pools plumbed with seawater and a state-of-the-art necropsy facility (necropsies are the equivalent of autopsies but on non-human animals—here mostly sea otters and seabirds, but we’ve had an occasional great white shark or leatherback sea turtle). But all this logistical work can be rewarding. Planning projects and providing strategic vision for staff allows our team to respond effectively to oil spills, and allows my staff to work on exciting scientific work investigating health of sea otters and seabirds.

What is the most rewarding project that you’ve worked on for CDFW?

Our primary role at OSPR is response to oil spills and although we never look forward to them, the experience can be rewarding (albeit stressful). Spill response allows an opportunity to put our training to use and have a positive influence, hopefully making a bad situation better. My first big spill response was the Cosco Busan incident in the San Francisco Bay in 2007, only a month after I started. That was a great learning experience for me. Since then there have only been a few spills affecting substantial numbers of animals, most recently the Refugio spill in Santa Barbara in 2015. All of this work on oil spills is rewarding, especially to see cleaned and rehabilitated wildlife released back into the wild.

If you had free rein and unlimited funding, what scientific project would you most like to do?

There are many projects that would be intellectually stimulating and fun, and also a lot of conservation projects in desperate need of funding. But I think one way to have a big influence on recovery of threatened species would be to put more funding into investigating ways to minimize the impacts of corvids (ravens, crows and jays) on threatened species. Through our work on oil spill restoration projects, I’ve seen corvid impacts (corvids eating eggs or young of threatened species) as a common theme limiting recovery of multiple species. Corvids are very smart birds and they’ve done a great job of adapting to and benefiting from humans. Because humans are responsible for huge population increases in corvids, it would be great if we could do something to minimize their impacts on other species. But this is not an easy issue to address – thus the need for more funding.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

Discovery. There will always be new things to discover, and that is the whole point of science. 

The world of science and managing natural resources is often confusing or mysterious for the average person. What is it about the work you do that you’d most like us to know?

The natural world is indeed so mysterious! But I guess one thing for non-scientists would be not to let numbers and mathematical formulas scare you. Ecology as a science has become more mathematical over the years, and even we scientists have a hard time keeping up with new statistical methods and fancy mathematical models. Scientific studies should still be done in a way that makes sense – if you can see past the formulas and understand how a study or an experiment was set up, it is usually not too difficult to understand the results.

Is there a preconception about scientists you would like to dispel?

I think one misconception might be that scientists have all the answers. Any good scientist will tell you there is still a lot to learn, and the better you are at science, the more likely you are to acknowledge that we are not sure about a lot of things. Uncertainty is a big part of science, and properly assessing that uncertainty is important. (To be clear: global climate change is NOT something with a lot of uncertainty).

Any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

Be curious and have an open mind. Science is all about not having pre-conceived biases, and being willing to accept findings that may be surprising or even in conflict with previously-held beliefs.

Photos courtesy of Laird Henkel. Top Photo: In 2010, Laird Henkel participated in the Deepwater spill response.

Corinne Gibble is an environmental scientist for CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), working at the department’s Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center (MWVCRC) in Santa Cruz. Corinne studies the health and pathology of marine birds, with the ultimate goal of providing the best care possible to birds that are impacted by oil spills. She also researches and monitors emerging threats to seabird populations. During oil spills, she serves as a first responder, filling a variety of roles within the incident command post.

Corinne earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Vermont, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, as well as a master’s degree in marine science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and a PhD from UC Santa Cruz. Her master’s thesis research investigated the food habits of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii) in San Francisco Bay, with a focus on the increasing importance of invasive species in their diet.

While she was pursing her doctorate, she was a NOAA Nancy Foster Scholar in the lab of Raphael Kudela, where she conducted research investigating the movement of the cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa, and associated toxin microcystin from terrestrial to marine environments in Monterey Bay. She examined the uptake and retention of this toxin in shellfish, and developed new methodology to detect the occurrence of this toxin in estuarine birds and seabirds.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

I’ve always had an innate sense of wonder about the natural world. During my childhood in Pennsylvania, my parents emphasized outdoor exploration and nurtured my love of animals and nature at every turn. I also had some amazing science teachers! I owe a lot of gratitude to one high school teacher in particular, Dr. Doug Dahms. He helped me harness and focus that energy and motivated me to go into the field of wildlife biology and ecology.

What got you interested in working with wildlife?

My mother wanted to be a veterinarian, but chose a different career path, so I grew up with a collection of pets. I was around all types of animals from a young age, allowing me to develop compassion, respect and awe for companion animals and wildlife. I’ve always been fascinated by wildlife and the outdoors, and working with wildlife in some capacity was always my goal.

What brought you to CDFW?

When I was working on my MS degree, I was hired to work on a grant-funded seabird health project. This study was funded by the Scientific Study and Evaluation Program (SSEP), which is an OSPR-run research program that provides a mechanism for investigating, evaluating and improving applied OSPR programs, best achievable technologies and our knowledge of the adverse effects of oil spills in the marine environment. That project was housed at the MWVCRC, so I spent four years working with CDFW employees. Since my current job combines my scientific interests and my passion for the care of oiled wildlife, it is a perfect fit for me.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

Some of the most rewarding work I do is serving alongside other OSPR employees and Oiled Wildlife Care Network affiliates during oil spills and other large mortality events to support sick, injured and oiled seabirds. But my typical day varies quite a bit, and my work is multi-faceted. You might find me in the field on a beach survey, in the necropsy laboratory examining birds from die-off events or oiling events, or in my office analyzing data and writing reports and publications. Since I am an employee of CDFW-OSPR, some of my work also revolves around oil spill preparedness and response. I frequently attend drills and trainings pertaining to oil spills and oiled wildlife care.

Scientists involved in environmental and wildlife science contribute to our knowledge base and provide the capacity to improve how we can act as guardians of the natural environment. In general, environmental scientists and natural resource managers are attempting to answer questions that help support healthy ecosystems. Good data and sound scientific design are key to studies that are useable and easy to implement. I truly enjoy producing science that supports the best achievable care for oiled wildlife.

If you had free reign and unlimited funding, what scientific project would you most like to do?

I would like to put more funding into long-term monitoring programs for seabirds. Projects like these are often not funded because they are not especially flashy. However, they are incredibly important for understanding the baseline information for seabird populations. This important data helps scientists gauge what is normal when something like an oil spill or a large mortality event occurs!

Generally, scientists working in ecology are doing all of their work on a shoestring budget, and often the process of designing and carrying proper experiments takes quite a bit of time. Sometimes, a large span of time and a lot of research is needed to find the true answer.

Over the course of your career, was there a discovery or an incident that surprised you?

I feel fortunate my career lends itself to different experiences. Some of these include participating in whale, pinniped, sea turtle and seabird research. Perhaps one of my favorite and surprising discoveries was finding out how much you can learn from harbor seal scat. My MS research explored the diet of harbor seals by examining fish ear bones (otoliths) and other diagnostic bones from fish found in their droppings.

Do you have any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

My advice would be to not focus on one particular species. Be open and interested in the questions and the interconnectedness of many fields in science. If you keep that in mind, you will have many opportunities to study and interact with subjects that you think are interesting! Also, don’t be shy to volunteer! Volunteering and interning gives people considering careers in science necessary field experience and allows them to explore different scientific disciplines.

Photos courtesy of Corinne Gibble