Dr. Samuel Chan

Project PI, Associate Professor, Oregon State University

Sam is the Statewide Watershed Health and Aquatic Invasive Species Specialist at Oregon Sea Grant Extension, at Oregon State University and the Broader Impacts Research Team Leader for the NSF-funded Willamette Water 2100 project. Sam is Oregon Sea Grant's statewide expert in aquatic invasive species and watershed/aquatic ecosystem health. He conducts applied research and provides public education and engagement to Oregonians to help them understand, identify, control and manage the spread of invasive species. He also serves on and is past chair of the Oregon Invasive Species Council and is on the Western Regional Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species. He recently served on an IPA as the National Sea Grant Extension Leader at the NOAA Sea Grant Office in Silver Spring, MD. 

 

 


 

 

John Vreyens, Ph.D.

University of Minnesota Extension, Director, Global Initiatives

John supports UM Extension staff to build capacity with our international partners across all programs areas of Extension, and coordinates collaborative extension programs in Morocco, Kenya, Guatemala, and Brazil. He supports faculty and staff to enhance or transfer cross-cultural communication skills from these international experiences to working in the kaleidoscope of communities now found in Minnesota. In his role as Director, John served on national committees representing International Agricultural programs on behalf of the land-grant university system in the United States. John was the first individual from the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Sciences to receive the University of Minnesota's Global Engagement Award in 2008. John participated in the American Council on Education's Institute for Leading Internationalization in 2015. He was selected to be a member of the Food Systems Leadership Institute, Cohort 13. Most recently, John was elected as the International Agriculture Section representative of the Association of Public Land-grant Universities Policy Board of Directors. As part of the Don't Pack a Pest for Academic Travelers program, John leads efforts to broaden the reach to national and international awareness through Cooperative Extension. He also leads a statewide effort in Minnesota to support college and university international program offices to include Don't Pack a Pest content encouraging responsible student travel to protect our food supply and natural resources. 

 

 

 

Dr. Dan Faltesek

Associate Professor of Cultural Analytics, Coordinator of New Media Communications, Director of the GameLab, Oregon State University

Dan is interested in how larger logistical factors (technical, legal, and financial) shape the kinds of material that flow through social media systems. In his dissertation research, this was primarily about the development of post-network television systems and the emergence of social flows. Recently his research is shifting from producing films and television to flash programs, computationally driven work in network analysis, image plotting, scraping, and other methods. His research looks at methods that can establish possible connections between changes in logistics and social media as it is rendered for users. As part of Don't Pack a Pest, Dan is leading our research on the effectiveness of modern social media methods, such as DPAP augmented reality filters, in influencing the "social media connected" student travel. 


 

 

 

Tania Siemens, MS

Project Coordinator, Oregon State University

Tania is the Aquatic Invasive Species Research Assistant with Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University. In her tenure as faculty at OSU, Tania has been leading and reporting on research and outreach projects in multiple invasive species pathways including seminal work on the “schools pathway” where well-meaning teachers and students release classroom pets or experimental organisms. Tania led the development of for a western regional AIS toolkit ( Menace to the West Aquatic Invaders Curriculum and Toolkit). Tania serves as Special Assistant to the Oregon Invasive Species Council and led the development of Early Detection and Rapid Response networks across Oregon She is currently coordinating the  Don't Pack a Pest for Academic Travelers Program at Oregon Sea Grant in collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection and the USDA-APHIS. Tania holds a Master’s degree from Cornell University in the Ecology and Management of Invasive Species.