Interim Executive Director Jeff Lauder has been promoted to Executive Director of Sierra Streams Institute (SSI).
Jeff spent his youth exploring the Sierra Nevada and through these explorations learned of the unique and powerful beauty the foothills and mountains in which we live. In college Jeff was fortunate enough to learn about ecology on an experimental forest here in Nevada County—Lowell Hill Long Term Soil Productivity plot. Academically Jeff studied drought ecology of the Sierra and earned a PhD in Quantitative and Systems Biology.
Jeff has over a decade of experience studying and managing Sierra Nevada ecosystems to increase resilience to stress. He also has a long association with Sierra Streams Institute–he first worked with Sierra Streams Institute as a Sierra Nevada AmeriCorps Partnership (SNAP) member in 2012. Jeff looks forward to carrying on the legacy of his predecessor by focusing on the nexus of community and environmental science and is excited to help guide SSI into the future.
Sierra Streams Institute is a regional watershed science organization based in Nevada City, California, dedicated to increasing watershed stewardship capacity throughout the Sierra Nevada region and beyond. We work with local, state, and federal agencies as well as universities and community groups to find solutions to the problems that afflict Deer Creek, Bear River and other watersheds throughout the region that share the challenges resulting from a century and a half of gold mining, development, and agriculture. Our mission is to link water, science, and people for the benefit of our community and the environment.