Meet Our Team: Rebekah Jensen
Rebekah Jensen is a Senior Project Manager and Ecologist at Live Oak Associates.
Rebekah’s Background
Rebekah took a circuitous route into the biological sciences, first earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a creative writing emphasis. She imagined she would write books for a living – but then she fell in love with the wild landscapes of the American West and decided her office needed to be the out-of-doors. That led her to a second Bachelor of Arts degree, this time in Biology, and later a Master of Science degree in Forestry with a wildlife biology emphasis.
Her early work as a wildlife biologist put her in the Cascades, Rockies, Appalachians, and Sierra Nevada, where she collected and analyzed field data for a variety of publicly-funded research projects. She captured, tracked, and monitored northern spotted owls, black bears, and fishers, live-trapped deer mice and other small mammals, trapped and identified insects, and collected vegetation data. Her work with black bears and fishers involved hundreds of hours of aerial telemetry. She used ESRI ArcGIS to analyze and interpret the data she collected, developing strong map-making skills along the way. She led field crews, prepared technical reports, and presented her findings to the scientific community and the general public.
As Rebekah raised her young son, long days in the field began to lose their luster. She walked through the doors of Live Oak Associates in 2011, seeking a more settled life. She found that and a great deal more.
Rebekah’s work with Live Oak Associates
Over the past decade-plus, Rebekah has led, performed, or assisted with nearly every type of service Live Oak Associates provides. This includes a variety of field surveys, impact assessments, biological resource monitoring, regulatory permit applications, environmental awareness training, restoration plans, habitat management plans, many types of technical reports, mapping, and other deliverables.
Since 2017, she has been working remotely for Live Oak Associates – first while traveling the country with her son, and now in Washington State. Although Rebekah is no longer physically present in the Oakhurst office, she maintains close relationships with all of her coworkers, collaborating to ensure client needs are met. Her main focus now is the deliverables side of things. At any given time, she can be found preparing permit applications, analyzing biological resource impacts for California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) compliance, writing technical reports, and preparing high-quality maps. She also frequently reviews other team members’ deliverables for style, content, and technical accuracy.
What Rebekah enjoys most about working at Live Oak Associates
Rebekah likes the variety of her job. The wide range of assignments that cross her desk keeps her learning, engaged, and improving her skill set. She also loves the culture at Live Oak Associates, where her coworkers have become her friends and family.
What Rebekah enjoys doing when not working
Rebekah lives in a backwoodsy, mountainous region of eastern Washington, where she hikes, backpacks, climbs mountains, trail runs, cross-country skis, snowshoes, birdwatches, gardens, cuts firewood, pulls weeds, and just generally loves the world outside of four walls. When she is inside, you can find her cooking, processing garden fare, reading, singing along to Spotify, looking out the window, or some combination thereof.
Live Oak Associates provides a comprehensive range of biological consulting services to organizations throughout California. Partner with us to discover how our team can help you with your next project.