About Paul

I have had the pleasure of working at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory since 1999 beginning my career conducting floral inventories and managing back-country field teams in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Since then, most of my research has been conducted in partnership with multiple federal agencies (e.g., US Geological Survey, US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management) and on public lands at regional and national scales. As a research scientist at NREL, and affiliate faculty with the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, my current research and educational interests span across multiple disciplines, including invasive species, wildlife and habitat, forest ecology, and climate change. Although I firmly believe in knowledge gained from old fashioned field work and observations, I also believe that managers and researchers can and should leverage the technologies of modern science. Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing and spatial modeling have become cornerstones of my research and are critical tools for facilitating education, management and conservation of natural resources. In 1999, I also started working in Ethiopia - which unexpectedly turned into a lifelong interest and commitment. To date, I’ve worked on about a dozen research studies related to wildlife management and conservation, floral inventories, and mapping of ecosystem services that are critical to the livelihoods of local people. Of particular interest and importance has been my work on the mountain nyala, an endangered antelope that is only found in the southern highlands of Ethiopia. My work has spanned for over a decade, and I’m pleased to say that the future of the species looks brighter than when I first started. Paralleling all of my Ethiopia research has been a number of grass-roots and community projects I’ve been involved with. These have included strengthening the teaching capacity of rural schools, construction of water-supply systems, reforestation of native trees, professional training for wildlife managers, and many others that collectively address Ethiopia’s environmental and social challenges from multiple approaches.

Website CV

Education

PhD, Forest Ecosystem Management - Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO, 2009

MS, Forest Ecology - Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO, 2003

BS, Natural Resource Management - Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO, 1999

Selected Publications

Integrating Remote Sensing with Species Distribution Models; Mapping Tamarisk Invasions Using the Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM).

  • West, A., Evangelista, P., Jarnevich, C., Young, N., Stohlgren, T., Talbert, C.,... Anderson, R.,

Severity of a mountain pine beetle outbreak across a range of stand conditions in Fraser Experimental Forest, Colorado, United States

  • Vorster, A., Evangelista, P., Stohlgren, T., Kumar, S., Rhoades, C., Hubbard, R.,... Elder, K.,

Integrating subsistence practice and species distribution modeling: assessing invasive elodea's potential impact on Native Alaskan subsistence of Chinook salmon and whitefish.

  • Luizza, M., Evangelista, P., Jarnevich, C.West, A., & Stewart, H.,

Using district-level occurrences in MaxEnt for predicting the invasion potential of an exotic insect pest in India

  • Kumar, S., Graham, J.West, A., & Evangelista, P.,

Memberships

  • Trout Unlimited
  • The Murulle Foundation (Chair, Co-founder)
  • The Wildlife Society

Web Links

Colorado Forest Restoration Initiative

USDA North Central Climate Science Center

CSU-Ethiopia Strategic Partnership