Jamie Miller

Coastal Program Biologist

As a Coastal Program Biologist for the California Current Group at Point Blue, my work focuses on snowy plover productivity, and coastal dune and beach ecology at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Systematic Biology from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and have been working as a wildlife biologist on the Central Coast for over 15 years. I started out tracking California condors at Hi Mountain Lookout and studying kangaroo rat ecology in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes and Carrizo Plains National Monument. I earned my Master’s from the UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, specializing in conservation planning and environmental data science. My Master’s thesis work involved updating habitat connectivity assessments for The Nature Conservancy and the Staying Connected Initiative in the Adirondack Mountains.

Prior to coming to Point Blue, I banded birds in the white sand forests of the Amazon basin in Peru for an avian demography and population genetics study, and monitored snowy plover and least tern nesting at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area in San Luis Obispo County. I have worked on research projects studying avian breeding biology in an Andean cloud forest in Peru, monitoring San Joaquin kit fox and blunt-nose leopard lizards in the Central Valley, studying monarch butterfly winter roosts on the Monterey coast, banding forest birds in Hawai’i, and studying foraging ecology of howler monkeys in Costa Rica.

In my work I strive to integrate sustainable land use practices, evidence-based management and policy decisions, and public outreach to protect both human communities and the natural environment. When not climbing sand dunes looking for plover chicks on Vandenberg’s beaches, I enjoy native plant gardening, harboring native bees in my yard, baking goodies with locally-grown fruit, and photographing wild things.