Contact Our Staff

Greg Kaltenecker co-founded IBO in 1992.  He received his BS in Biology and his MS in Raptor Biology from Boise State University. Greg currently holds the Diane and Winston Moore Endowed Chair for the Director of the Intermountain Bird Observatory.  Greg’s research passion is bird migration, and his lifelong pursuit is to educate the public about birds, science, and conservation. He believes that a strong public community presence is critical to being an effective scientist, and that the easiest way to accomplish conservation is through active public engagement.

Jay Carlisle is the Research Director of IBO and a Research Faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at Boise State. He has worked with the Intermountain Bird Observatory since 1996 and Jay’s research interests are focused on the stopover ecology, habitat needs, and conservation of migratory birds. In his free time, Jay enjoys time with his kids and family, birding, soccer, trying to speak Spanish, and international travel.

Rob joined IBO in 2009 as a volunteer. This was his first step as a biologist after a 21-year career at HP. After completing a MS Degree in Raptor Biology, Rob joined IBO full time in 2013. Rob leads IBO Team Goshawk, a long-term study of goshawk ecology within the Intermountain West, and Project WAfLS, an eight state survey of Short-eared Owls. His other projects include Flammulated Owls, Great Gray Owls, woodpeckers (all ten species in Idaho), Mountain Quail, Belted Kingfishers, and Black Swifts. He has studied raptor migration in Tarifa, Spain and raptor populations in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique.

Heidi joined IBO in 2008 when she volunteered as an undergrad intern at Lucky Peak. She worked at IBO throughout her bachelor’s degree, then went on to earn her M.S. in Biology from Boise State in 2014, where she studied the impacts of traffic noise on migrating songbirds. As Education Director Heidi coordinates public events at our banding stations, runs our social media pages, conducts field trips, and teaches courses. Heidi focuses on using IBO’s strengths in hands-on science and community involvement to integrate K-12 science education with bird conservation.

Jeremy moved from a seasonal technician to full-time IBO staff in 2016 and serves primarily as a co-manager of the large IMBCR point-count project in Idaho and Utah.  He also helped pilot a bioacoustics project at Lucky Peak, and has worked to install Motus towers in collaboration with MPG Ranch from Montana.  He is mostly interested in passive research/monitoring techniques and new technologies that give us more information and new perspectives into the avian world.  He enjoys getting out in the field to train technicians on bird identification and to aid in the various IBO projects.

After completing three seasons as a technician for the Integrated Monitoring Bird Conservation Region (IMBCR) Program, Lesley joined IBO in a full-time research biologist role in 2022 . Since 2018, she has worked as a technician and research assistant on wildlife conservation projects in Alabama, Idaho, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. She contributed to a variety of projects focused on the ecology of breeding birds, habitat use of wintering sea ducks and waterfowl, occupancy of threatened and endangered amphibians and reptiles, and patterns of cold-stunned endangered sea turtles. She will lead IBO’s Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo project and Pinyon Jay project, and co-manage the IMBCR program in Montana.

Colin joined IBO after completing a Masters in International Nature Conservation at the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he studied the impact of hunting on Afrotropical hornbill species. His research interests are primarily focused on migration dynamics, behavioral ecology, and conservation – although really just about anything related to birds will get him excited. Research and field work opportunities have taken him to some unique parts of the world, including the Middle East, Africa, and the South Pacific, but, having been born and raised in southeast Idaho, Colin is excited to be back home and contribute to the amazing work being done at IBO.

Ashlyn Alexander is IBO’s Academic Programs Coordinator within the Department of Biological Sciences at BSU. She started out as a student employee in the Biology Department. In 2022,  she started to work with IBO assisting in the summers on their field season work. That sparked a love for the team and the amazing work they do. After graduating, she was able to work full time and focus solely on operational support. Outside of work, Ashlyn enjoys diving head first into murder mystery novels, drawing, painting murals, and goofing around with the people closest to her.

Cale’s research interests lie at the confluence of anthropogenic environmental change, movement and behavior, and conservation, with a focus on alpine environments and adjacent terrain. His fieldwork experience began at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) as a student researcher, where he studied the effects of changing climate on plant-insect interactions in high altitude environments. The privilege of working under pioneers in the field of ecology was a formative experience in his career for which he remains eternally grateful. He joined IBO as a field technician in 2023 and contributed to a variety of monitoring projects in the following years including IMBCR (ID & UT), Pinyon Jays (ID, UT, & WY), Clark’s Nutcrackers (ID), Cassia Crossbills (ID) and woodpeckers (ID). He joined us full-time in 2026. When there’s snow on the ground, he spends as much of his free time as possible skiing or planning to go skiing.

Antonia joined our team in 2026 and manages a number of projects including Yellow-billed Cuckoo research and our Lucky Peak Migration Research camp and logistics.

Heather joined the IBO team in 2015 as a research biologist and worked on the Long-billed Curlew Satellite Tracking program and as a bander for the Hummingbird Monitoring project. She served as our full-time Community Science Coordinator until 2025. While Heather no longer works for IBO full time, she still joins us for our Hummingbird Banding research whenever she can. We’re grateful for her dedication and love for the birds!