BEMP Board of Directors

Steven Glass

Board Chair

James Steven (“Steve”) Glass earned an MS in Biology from NM State University in 1976. After spending ten years in environmental science research, Steve held environmental compliance positions with local government agencies in the middle Rio Grande Valley for 23 years until his retirement in 2011. In recognition of his life-long commitment to natural resources conservation, Glass has been appointed to the NM Water Quality Control Commission (2033-2013), the Water Protection Advisory Board (2012-present), the Mid-Region Council of Governments Water Resources Board (2012-present) and the NM Soil and Water Conservation Commission (2014-present). Glass was first elected to the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors in 2003, and has served as Chairman for fifteen of his eighteen years on the Board. Steve’s experience serving on nonprofit Boards includes the Open Space Alliance (2011-present), Cancer Services of New Mexico (2020-present) and the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (2021-present). Glass also joined the part-time faculty at Central New Mexico Community College in 2010 and teaches classes in biology and environmental science. Steve is the proud father of three children and grandfather of five grandchildren.

Molly Madden

Secretary

I am a retired elementary teacher from Belen Consolidated Schools, and lived in Belen from 1984-2019. During my last 10 years as a 2nd grade teacher, I became the Belen BEMP site representative (1997) and my class with other classes from my school (Rio Grande Elementary) performed the monthly monitoring. After the Valencia sites were added to the area, other teachers assumed responsibility for those sites. After I retired in 2007, my teaching partner wanted to continue with BEMP so I went with her class to the Belen site until I moved to Albuquerque in 2019.

I have benefitted in many ways, professionally and personally, from my 20+ years with BEMP, resulting in my commitment to teaching all subjects as connected and integrated, using visits to the bosque as a focus. After retirement, I developed and implemented an environmental education program at Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area supporting 4th grade life science curriculum in Belen and Los Lunas Schools.

I enjoy being part of the dynamic and thoughtful EE community, and have served on the EENM board of directors, and am currently working on the Bosque Education Guide team to update six activities to correlate with NM STEM Ready Science Standards.

I have 3 daughters, one of whom is a 3rd grade teacher at Manzano Day School. My husband is a family doctor, still commuting to Belen each day to care for his patients.

Jennifer Rudgers

Treasurer

Jennifer Rudgers is the Director and lead Primary Investigator of the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program at UNM, which supports 73 senior scientists, 48 graduate students and a full-time staff of 9 people, including co-PI and Education Director, Dr. Kim Eichhorst.  Sevilleta LTER has been connected with BEMP as their sole education and outreach partner since BEMP’s inception.  The current focus of the Sevilleta LTER is understanding the ecological consequences of environmental variability, particularly interannual variability in climate.  Sevilleta LTER has published >800 peer-reviewed papers, been cited more than 60,000 times, and brought >$70 million in external research funding to UNM.  Beyond her leadership in the Sevilleta, Jennifer’s research program aims to decipher the complex, beneficial interactions among species that structure ecological communities and ecosystems.  This research has high potential to improve predictions and suggest new solutions for adaptation to our changing world.  She has published >100 papers, about 1/3 of them with undergraduate students. Her research program is primarily supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).