About our Meeting Logo

Behind the Logo:

Laura Duffy is a San Francisco Bay Area wildlife biologist with experience in wildlife science, marine and coastal ecology, marine protected areas, and education and outreach – plus, a heretofore hidden talent in the arts. When she’s not at work, you can find Laura volunteering, painting, running, skiing, hiking, swimming, and exploring the coast. Weeks after accepting the assignment to take on the logo for this year’s annual meeting, Laura also accepted a FEMA deployment to Puerto Rico to help respond to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria. In between work and the not-infrequent intra-island moves required to help Puerto Rico recover, Laura worked hard to to create our 2019 logo, “Death and Taxas: Extinction and Speciation During the Anthropocene.” The logo features species not only on the brink of extinction (Lange’s metalmark butterfly, Delta smelt, Sierra Nevada red fox) or possibly extinct (Fresno kangaroo rat) but also those on the road to recovery (California condor) and successfully recovered (northern elephant seal), all set against the magnificent backdrop of Yosemite’s Half Dome.