Judy Li

Roles: Special Guest, Panelist

Pursuing my curiosity for living things that began with day camp in grade school I became a stream ecologist, with particular interests in aquatic insects and riparian food webs. I studied biology at U. C. Berkeley where I met my husband, Hiram, and we enjoyed many years of collaborative study in streams of the West. I juggled raising our 2 kids with slowly making my way through graduate work at U. C. Davis and Oregon State University. After graduate school I joined the faculty in OSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife where I taught courses in cultural ecology and riparian ecology and conducted research in an array of Oregon’s streams with my graduate students. Both in teaching and professional activities I worked to increase
participation by under-represented groups, and learned much from students from diverse backgrounds, especially Native Americans. I discovered new directions after retiring in 2006 when I began writing about science for lay audiences. To Harvest, To Hunt; Stories of Resource Use in the American West and Wading for Bugs; Learning About Streams From the Experts were collected essays for adults, followed by four books for upper elementary kids, the “Ellie and Ricky” series, from OSU Press. Those nature books for kids were illustrated by my friend, Peg Herring, and we were delighted when they received national awards as children’s science books.
Along the way I’ve received awards for teaching and research. Most recently I became a Fellow in the Society for Freshwater Science and the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. Throughout my life I’ve enjoyed volunteer work; presently I chair the board of Freshwaters Illustrated and also serve on
the board of the Institute for Applied Ecology, a non-profit that works to conserve native plants and their habitats. Time spent with family and friends is precious, and I still delight in learning about wild things in
the out-of-doors, especially the little ones.