Joshua Lipton supervises the firm’s environmental sciences and natural resources group, as well as its natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) work area. Dr. Lipton is an environmental toxicologist with expertise in aquatic and terrestrial toxicology, applied ecology and population biology, and uncertainty analysis.

His recent toxicological research activities include investigations into the bioavailability of metals to fish and plants, sublethal and behavioral responses of organisms to hazardous substances, effects of acclimation and adaptation on sensitivity to metals, community/ecological responses to chronic contamination, lethal and sublethal effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on marine organisms and communities, and reproductive, sub-lethal, and behavioral effects of chlorinated organics. He also directs field studies on fish and wildlife populations, field studies of aquatic and terrestrial habitat and community composition, and extensive environmental sampling and monitoring programs.

Dr. Lipton has published peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals such as the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Ecotoxicology, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, Environmental Management, and Aquatic Toxicology. Dr. Lipton is an elected member of the editorial board of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Dr. Lipton holds a PhD in natural resources/environmental toxicology and an MS in natural resources from Cornell University, and a BA in ecology from Middlebury College.

Nimmi Damodaran has over 15 years of experience in quantitative and qualitative analysis focusing primarily on environmental and economic issues. Her current research interests are the phaseout of ozone depleting substances, the assessment of economically and technically feasible alternatives to ozone depleting substances, the estimation of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions at the local and national levels, ensuring the quality of environmental information, and assisting in the development of processes that incorporate external costs into decision-making on drinking water infrastructure. Her methodological expertise covers economic, statistical, and decision analyses. Dr. Damodaran’s current clients include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the American Water Works Association Research Foundation. Before joining Stratus Consulting, Dr. Damodaran was a project manager at Princeton Energy Resources International, a senior energy and environmental analyst at DynCorp I&ET, and a lecturer at Cornell University where she taught economics and statistics. She has presented talks at international conferences on solid waste and methane emissions and published articles in journals such as Management Science, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and Energy Systems and Policy.

Dr. Carney is a terrestrial ecologist with expertise in global climate change analysis. Her research over the past decade has included using long-term experiments to examine how ecosystems respond to changes in the earth’s atmosphere. For example, as a postdoctoral fellow with the Smithsonian Institution, she performed experiments demonstrating for the first time that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide causes soils to lose carbon over time by enhancing microbial degradation of soil carbon. Dr. Carney has also performed research to evaluate how land use and plant diversity in the tropics affects the amount of carbon stored by ecosystems, a factor that is critical to predicting and mitigating the contributions of land use to climate change. Dr. Carney’s expertise in terrestrial ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife ecology includes research into the influence of tourism on the reproductive success of seabirds, field research documenting the effects of climate change on breeding penguins and other seabirds across the Antarctic Peninsula, developing a geographical information system-based assessment of the conservation status and priority ranking of North American ecosystems, and field research into the conservation, behavior, and reproductive success of passerines and seabirds in coastal California and the wet tropical forests of Costa Rica. In addition to her academic research, Dr. Carney has been involved in policy analysis related to climate change issues through a AAAS Diplomacy Fellowship at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). At USAID, Dr. Carney was involved in projects related to biodiversity and forestry conservation in developing countries and provided technical consultation with USAID programs around the world. Dr. Carney worked with the USAID Climate Change Team on slowing deforestation in developing countries, developed strategic documents for USAID related to biodiversity and forestry issues, participated in review panels for biodiversity and climate change proposals, and served as a USAID reviewer of reports prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Carney has published the results of her scholarly research in such peer-reviewed outlets as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecosystems, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Ecology Letters, Colonial Waterbirds, Ecography, and Microbial Ecology. 

Mr. Eric English joins our Boulder, CO office as a Managing Economist. Mr. English is a natural resource economist with specific expertise in resource valuation and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). Mr. English has conducted numerous economic valuation studies involving damages associated with oil spills and chemical releases, services provided by habitat restoration to both humans and the natural environment, value derived from the recreational use of natural resources, and the fair market value of commercial use of marine resources. For the past eight years, Mr. English has worked as an economist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Office of Response and Restoration. In that role, he assessed natural resource damages due to pollution incidents in marine environments using mail and intercept surveys, discrete-choice models of recreational use, benefit-transfer methods and habitat equivalency analysis; presented analytical findings to state, federal and tribal trustees, industry representatives and at professional conferences; organized and directed technical research efforts; negotiated natural resource damage settlements with responsible parties; developed and published new economic valuation models; and served as U.S. delegate to the International Maritime Organization to draft damage assessment guidance for member nations. Prior to joining NOAA, Mr. English worked as an economist with KPMG, a consulting firm located in New York City. Mr. English is currently completing a book on habitat and resource equivalency methods for the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and has published his economic research in technical reports and peer-reviewed articles.

Mr. English holds a BA in classics from Williams College, an MA in Public Administration from Cornell University, and an MA in economics from Cornell University. Mr. English is currently working towards completing his PhD in economics from Cornell University.

Dr. Kaylene Ritter, senior scientist, is an environmental geochemist with expertise in the fate and transport of natural and anthropogenic contaminants in groundwaters, surface waters, and sediments. Dr. Ritter’s technical background  includes geology, hydrogeology, and hydrology.  Dr. Ritter is involved in conducting natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs).  She is also involved in regulatory and policy support work related to climate change effects and mitigation.  She has worked on numerous NRDA sites, including metals-contaminated mine sites in the southwest, and urban/industrial sites contaminated with organic and metal pollutants in the Midwest and Eastern US. Her work on climate change effects and mitigation has focused on the evaluation of vulnerabilities associated with the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. Dr. Ritter holds a PhD in applied chemistry and geochemistry from the Colorado School of Mines, an MS in earth sciences from the University of Waterloo, and a BS in earth sciences from Laurentian University. The results of her research have been published as articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Environmental Science and Technology, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, and Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Katherine D. LeJeune is an ecosystem ecologist with expertise in the assessment of human impacts to surface water, soil, and vegetation communities. Her work focuses on the effects of chemical contaminants on surface water, soil nutrient cycling, vegetation composition and structure, and wildlife habitat, and methods for restoring disturbed soils, surface water, and ecosystem functions. She has investigated the effects of hard rock mining on surface water, soils, and vegetation at sites throughout the United States, as well as in South America. In South America, Dr. LeJeune has worked with community-based organizations to develop field sampling and data analysis programs to assess the effects of active mining operations on surface water quality and quantity. Her research also includes investigation of the effects of invasive plant species on soil nutrient cycling and native plant communities, and biological, physical, and biogeochemical methods for controlling invasive plant species. In addition, she has assessed the effects of global change – including climate and atmospheric chemistry change – on vegetation communities at local and regional scales, using modeling and field experimental approaches.

Dr. LeJeune’s experience includes management of natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs) for federal, state, and tribal natural resource trustees. Her NRDA experience includes both full injury and damage assessment approaches, and resource and habitat equivalency approaches. She provides expert technical assistance and direction, case strategy and management services, and litigation strategy support to trustees. For numerous NRDAs, Dr. LeJeune has designed and conducted field and laboratory studies to identify and quantify injury, and identified, evaluated, and scaled ecological restoration projects to compensate for losses of natural resources. She has worked on cooperative NRDAs, assisting trustees with settlement strategy and negotiations with responsible parties, and she has prepared expert reports and testified in federal court on the effects of mine wastes on soils and ecosystem functions and services.

Her work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Ecotoxicology, Conservation Biology, Oecologia, and Environmental Entomology.

Dr. LeJeune is currently working part time after the birth of her son.