Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund’s team poses with several Board members during the HWF Marine Debris Symposium on Hawaiʻi Island in 2015
L to R: Kallie Barnes, Stacey Breining, Hannah Bernard, Megan Lamson with Nico Barrios, Maura Naughton, Bill Gilmartin, and Nadine Kehaulani Robertson.
Hannah Bernard
Executive Director and co-founder of Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund
In the 1980s, Bernard and Gilmartin were colleagues at National Marine Fisheries Service. In 1996, they chose to take a pro-active approach at wildlife recovery and together started Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund. Bernard is an award-winning marine biologist with 38 years of experience in conducting research, education and community outreach programs on protected marine life (29 of those years on Maui). She has served on numerous Boards and the federally-appointed Pacific Scientific Review Group, Pacific Cetacean Take Reduction team, and the Hawai’i Longline False Killer Whale Take Reduction Team.
Bill Gilmartin
Co-founder and Director of Research Emeritus of Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund
Currently, Bill is involved in marine debris recovery, habitat restoration and sea turtle research – all on Hawaiʻi Island. He is working on a book about the plight of the Hawaiian monk seal, drawing from his 16 years as Chief, Protected Species Program, National Marine Fisheries Service. He has over 40 years of conservation experience in Hawaiʻi as a biologist and has been a member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, the IUCN Seal Specialist Group, the NW Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Advisory Council, and the Hawai’i County Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission.
Megan Lamson
Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund’s Board President and Hawaiʻi Program Director
Megan has been coordinating HWF’s Hawaiʻi Island Marine Debris Removal Project and other restoration projects (including estuaries, anchialine pools, coastal strand and dry-forest plants) in southeast Hawaiʻi since 2008. She began exploring ocean critters in Hawaiʻi and California during her childhood, then earned a bachelor’s in marine biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master’s in tropical conservation biology and environmental science at the University of Hawaiʻi in Hilo in 2010.
Megan focused her academic research on coral reef fish ecology and community-based marine resource management. She is on the board of nonprofit, Ka ʻOhana O Honuʻapo, and has been actively working on conservation issues along the Kaʻū coastline since 2005. She helps to manage all of HWF’s Hawaiʻi Island programs and projects with support from other team members. Lamson also works part-time as a Fish and Habitat Monitoring Technician in Kona through RCUH’s Hawaiʻi Coral Reef Initiative (on contract to the Division of Aquatic Resources) as she has since 2012.
Magdalena Teriitua Carey
Senior naturalist with Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund’s Honu Watch Project
Magdalena enjoys sharing not only her knowledge about the green sea turtle (honu) but also her passion for the ocean and for the Hawaiian culture. In her spare time, she competes competitively on an Hawaiian canoe paddling team and coaches local kids in the sport.
Originally from Tahiti, Magda has called Maui home for over 15 years and holds a deep respect for the island and its people. In addition to her work teaching the public about sea turtles, she coordinates HWF’s Maui Marine Debris Program, working with volunteers to clean Maui’s beaches. In 2018, she joined the Eat Less Plastic voyage in Tahiti aimed at raising awareness about plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean.
