Board of Directors

Joseph Centoni has been a member of the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve board of directors since 2010.  He has been visiting Fitzgerald Marine Reserve for as long as he can remember.  Joseph was a ‘junior ranger’ at the reserve in elementary school and began volunteering at the reserve when he was in high school.  He is currently a high school science teacher and also enjoys helping train new volunteer naturalists at the reserve.

Linda became an FFMR Volunteer Naturalist in 2003 when she and her husband Tom took the docent training class, and they joined the Board of Directors that same year.  She grew up on the east coast of Virginia and arriving in the Bay Area in 1976 was surprised to find such dramatic differences in the two coastlines.  Having always been a water enthusiast and nature lover, she was pleased to find an organization with such a great group of like-minded people.  FFMR has so many opportunities for volunteers and being able to share the wonders of the intertidal with students of all ages has been very rewarding.  In 2005, Linda assumed the responsibilities of managing FFMR’s annual volunteer naturalist training classes and did that for about 10 years, and has been serving as Volunteer Coordinator since 2008.   She continues to lead tours at FMR and especially enjoys meeting students who are visiting the ocean or walking on a beach for the first time.  Seeing their amazement and joy at such an experience is always a pleasure.

Tom is a Michigan native.  He grew up there and has degrees in chemical engineering and law from the University of Michigan. After graduating from law school in 1964 Tom emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area to practice patent law.  A true science nerd, he specialized in chemical and life sciences inventions and was a pioneer in patenting biotechnology inventions—representing biotechnology companies, universities, and venture capitalists.

In 1988 Tom purchased a second home in Montara and soon discovered and fell in love with the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and became a Friends donor.  As he neared retirement Tom and his wife, Linda, decided to become FFMR volunteers and took Bob Breen’s 2003 training class.  Later that year they both joined the FFMR Board of Directors.  After retiring in 2007 Tom and Linda decided to live full time at their Montara home.  Tom enjoys volunteering at FMR, occasionally writing articles for the FFMR newsletter, and spending time with others in the FFMR family.

Susan Evans has been a naturalist for 14 years.  As a former teacher, she loves reef exploring with school tour groups, educating fellow naturalists with Continuing Ed./Zoom events and encouraging our future naturalists in the training classes.

Miranda grew up in Montara and first discovered her love for FMR when she took a 6:45am high-school marine biology class with FFMR’s founder, Bob Breen. She went on to work as a park ranger at FMR for five years where she fell even deeper in love with the reserve—and with a fellow park ranger! They later married. For some crazy reason, Miranda left her ranger job in 2018 to study law. She finished law school and passed the California bar exam during a global pandemic and emerged only slightly scarred. Recently, she landed her dream job at Sher Edling LLP, where she will help the firm hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its decades-long campaign of deception about the science of climate change and the role its products play in causing it. Miranda joined the FFMR Board in 2022.

For over thirty years Roger’s career centered on efforts managing facilities and developing programs in the field of informal environmental education.  Now retired, he has continued to volunteer locally with the goal of providing children with both understanding and engagement with the natural world.  Roger is thankful to have found the work of FFMR to be central to his personal interests and especially enjoys leading tours of younger students at the Reserve.

Jeanette H is a developmental biologist/vision scientist at UCSF.  She was introduced to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve while chaperoning her daughter’s field trip, took the naturalist training class soon after.  She has been a docent since 2012 and has served on the Board since 2019.  Her area of interest is educational outreach to the FMR.

An Ohio native, Karen earned her Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology at Rice University in Houston.  She conducted research on the biology of human genetic disease before getting the “teaching bug”, and has been a college professor in Minnesota and California. Her real passion is making science engaging and exciting for the non-specialists, be it children or adults. For 20 years she worked as a Staff Scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, where she trained classroom teachers and staff, presented public programs, consulted on exhibits, and provided scientific oversight of exhibitions and programming.   Karen is an alum of the FFMR naturalist class of 2015, and earned a California Naturalist credential in 2019.  In addition to being a steward for the Marine Reserve, she and her husband Rob enjoy travel, exploring the local coast, hanging out with friends, and playing with their two dogs and two cats.   One of her favorite tide pool animals is the sea urchin – she and Rob met while they were each conducting cell biology research using urchins as a model organism.

Tom Niesen is an emeritus professor of marine biology at San Francisco State University, specializing in the ecology of marine invertebrates. Dr. Niesen is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and has participated in marine research in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean and Bering Seas. Tom has been affiliated with the James V. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve for over 25 years, leading field trips, instructing naturalist classes and serving as a Board member since the 1980s.

Ron Olson is currently retired, having worked for San Mateo County for 35 years, 20 of those spent working in the Intensive Care Unit. He completed FMR naturalist training in 2011. What Ron enjoys most about being a volunteer naturalist at FMR is that each experience is unique. In his time at the Reserve, he’s learned to recognize how the plant and animal life in and around our tide pools have adapted to the challenges of their environment.

With a background in biology and a love of the ocean, Elaine found a perfect volunteer niche with FFMR becoming a docent first in 2001 for a few years, then becoming active again in 2017. Elaine enjoys roving on the reef and leading tours.

Scott grew up in New Jersey where he learned to find nature within a BMX bike ride of his house. His family never went to the Jersey Shore (“Oy, the traffic”), but they did make annual pilgrimages to South Carolina. Here, low tides revealed otherworldly tidepools with shells and the occasional sea star or even a seahorse. This was the start of his love of tidepools.

Later, as a young adult living in NYC, he picked up surfing and started spending weekends at local beaches. In 2002, to further this passion and a nascent career in technology, he moved to San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, he stumbled upon FMR and was smitten by its tidepool critters. He’s been an FFMR volunteer naturalist ever since and joined the board as treasurer in 2023.

Scott continues to live in San Francisco with his wife and two boys. When he is not surfing or tidepooling, he builds customer success organizations for startup tech companies..

Alison works at the California Academy of Sciences as the co-director of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science and the co-director of the Academy’s Thriving California strategic initiative. She wears many hats in her current roles, but one of her projects she’s always excited about is the annual Snapshot Cal Coast, working with people and organizations in every coastal county to document biodiversity along the entire California coast. Alison’s background is in marine biology, she holds a Masters in Biology from Humboldt State University for research focused on the potential effects of climate change on California’s rocky intertidal communities. When she’s not in the tidepools for work, she can often be found in the tidepools for fun – usually photographing nudibranchs.