iNaturalist Team
Ken-ichi Ueda
Ken-ichi is an avid naturalist with a background in both biology and software development, having worked as a wildlife technician, GIS developer, and web developer for a variety of organizations, including UC Berkeley and Goodreads.com. Ken-ichi developed iNaturalist while pursuing a Masters degree at the UC Berkeley School of Information in 2008.
Scott Loarie
Scott has BS & MS degrees in biology from Stanford and a PhD in environmental science from Duke. Scott was a research fellow in Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institute for Science and a lecturer in Geography at UC Berkeley with research focusing on global biodiversity loss from African elephants to the California flora. He co-directed iNaturalist with Ken-ichi from 2011-2023.
Carrie Seltzer
Carrie is deeply involved in iNaturalist organizational strategy, fundraising, and collaborations. She has a PhD in Ecology and previously worked for the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation. She joined the team in 2018 and lives in Washington, DC.
Patrick Leary
Patrick is a software developer from Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He started working in 2001 as a developer and database administrator for the uBio project at the Marine Biological Laboratory. Patrick continued work on uBio while receiving his Computer Science degree from Skidmore College. In 2007 Patrick become one of the first developers working on the Encyclopedia of Life, where he remained as a Lead Developer until joining iNaturalist in 2014.
Alex Shepard
Alex is a software developer and an artist. He has a BA in History from the University of Washington and an MFA in Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. Alex's MFA coursework involved making video games, 3d prints, and interactive objects. Prior to joining iNaturalist in the fall of 2014, Alex led iOS development at Eyefi.
Tony Iwane
Born and raised in Hawaii, Tony now lives in Oakland, California and is an experienced interpretive naturalist, photographer, and counselor. He has been helping out with iNat's outreach, support, and community management since 2015. When not at work, he enjoys looking for but rarely finding reptiles and amphibians.
Amanda Bullington
Amanda is a software developer who enjoys balancing their desire to be outdoors with their passion for building consumer-friendly products. They previously worked in communications for tech companies NerdWallet and Ripple, as well as the U.S. Department of State. When not working, Amanda loves photographing San Francisco’s local coyotes.
Abhas Misraraj
Abhas is a product designer whose passion lies at the intersection of wildlife and technology. He has a BA in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley, where he focused on the ecology and natural history of terrestrial vertebrates. Before iNaturalist, Abhas worked as a wildlife biologist at an environmental consulting company and as a product designer for startups in San Francisco.
Angie Ta
Angie is a software developer in the San Francisco Bay Area, though she originally hails from Florida. Moved by an ethics class she took in university and her love of aquatics, she aims to create software that helps connect people to nature. When not working, Angie enjoys learning a new recipe.
Sylvain Morin
Sylvain started software engineering in the mid 2000s in the financial tech sector, but transitioned to biodiversity work at GBIF France in 2019. He joined iNat in 2023 to help scale and maintain our server infrastructure.
Johannes Klein
Johannes is a React Native developer. He has a PhD in botany and spent the last seven years in software development. He is passionate about providing interfaces that connect people to nature or enable biological research. During after-work hours he keeps OpeRadar up-to-date with information about operas worldwide, or spends his time outside foraging and gardening.
Jason Walthall
Jason takes care of accounting and HR for iNaturalist. He has a diverse background, from management consulting, to co-founding the wine bar chain Vino Volo, to co-leading the San Francisco SPCA for seven years. He holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California. Jason lives in Napa with his husband, dog, two goats and six chickens.
Collaborators
Yaron Budowski
Yaron is a freelance developer based in Israel. He has been leading development of the iNaturalist Android app since 2013.
Board of Directors
Dick Raines
Dick Raines lives in rural Virginia with his wife Nancy and two dogs, Bailey and Simon. He has 3 sons, Nate, Drew, and Chase. He recently retired from Carfax where he was CEO for 30 years. During his tenure Carfax grew from 6 employees to over 1,500 and became a nationally recognized brand helping consumers with trusted information about used cars. Carfax regularly won awards as a “best place to work”. Dick has been active in environmental conservation organizations. He was board chair of The Potomac Conservancy. He served on the boards of the American Bird Conservancy and NatureServe. He is currently on the board of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters and the advisory board of The Finger Lakes Land Trust.
Aileen Lee
Aileen is the chief of programs for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. She oversees all grantmaking activity. Prior to joining the foundation, Aileen was an associate principal at McKinsey & Company. She currently serves on the boards of the Biodiversity Funders Group, Climate and Land Use Alliance, Legacy Landscapes Fund, and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. She has previously served as chair of the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and treasurer of the Western Conservation Foundation. She also volunteers with her hometown of Los Altos Hills as part of the Environmental Initiatives Committee. Aileen from Long Island, New York. She attended Yale University (B.A. in political science and East Asian studies), received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and is a member of the California bar.
Catherine Chang
Hailing from Oʻahu, Ms. Chang learned Mālama ‘āina from her Native Hawaiian family. The Bay Area is her home while continuing caring for the land. An adjunct professor of Architecture at University of San Francisco, she directs Madrone Design Studio and advises for institutions and governmental agencies. Her work focuses on buildings and landscapes supporting regenerative ecological, agricultural and cultural footprints within cities. Her projects engage with environmental issues such as reducing lead toxicity in historic neighborhoods to supporting community agriculture, recreation and exercise of cultural practices. USEPA, SF Unified School District, City Slicker Farms and Art Esteem are among key clientele. She lectures publicly, offering talks on community greening, urban agriculture, sustainable design techniques and using fire hardening efforts to promote biodiversity in fire-prone areas.
Dan Rademacher
Dan Rademacher is executive director of GreenInfo Network, a nonprofit mapping, communications, and data visualization organization that works across conservation, public health, and other critical social issues. As co-organizer of a meetup called Nerds for Nature, in 2013 Dan helped develop the model for grassroots iNaturalist-powered bioblitzes that inspired the City Nature Challenge. He's also a skilled furniture maker and serves on the board of Dorothy Day House Berkeley, a homeless services organization where he's volunteered since 2005. Dan previously worked at Stamen Design and Bay Nature Institute. He lives in Oakland, California.
Alison Young
Alison is the co-Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Community at the California Academy of Sciences, where she works to build communities and partnerships around nature, creates events and campaigns focused on documenting biodiversity, and mobilizes these data to answer questions and inform decision-making. Alison co-leads the annual City Nature Challenge, one of the largest community science events in the world, and she also helps to run Snapshot Cal Coast, a yearly campaign to document species along the California coastline. Alison's background is in marine biology, and when she’s not in the tidepools for work, she can often be found in the tidepools for fun, or in her local ceramics studio, happily bent over a pottery wheel.
Thanks to the iNaturalist Community
iNat wouldn't be possible without all the members of our amazing community, so huge thanks to anyone who's ever added an observation, made an identification, or even signed up (er, maybe not the spambots). You're all awesome. We're also extraordinarily thankful to all our site curators, who manage our taxonomy and try to keep iNat a fun, civil place to hang out. And let's not forget all the volunteers at Crowdin and Translatewiki who translate our site and apps into numerous languages, providing a critical service as we try to build communities beyond the English-speaking regions where we started. We wouldn't be able to make iNaturalist without many, many wonderful open-source projects, open datasets, and public APIs, so if you've ever written code or filed a bug for an open-source project, thank you. And last but certainly not least, thanks to all the funders who have supported us over the years. Those of us on staff feel both privileged and grateful to make a living working on iNat, so many thanks to anyone who's ever donated to us.
loarie
