Chris Winchell has 20 years of experience working as a plant, wetland, and wildlife ecologist. He has conducted numerous plant, wetland, and wildlife studies throughout central and southern California, spanning westward from the eastern Sierra Nevada to the central and southern Coast Ranges, and to the Mojave Desert and Transverse Ranges to the south. His expertise and passion are rooted in rare plant ecology and conservation, having spent much of his career documenting, inventorying, and studying hundreds of special-status plant species in the Sierra Nevada, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Central Coast Range. Chris also has a keen interest in special-status wildlife species and has considerable experience conducting surveys and monitoring for San Joaquin kit fox, San Joaquin antelope squirrel, blunt-nosed leopard lizard, giant kangaroo rat, burrowing owl, and more. Over the years, Chris has been active in public scientific outreach; he is an instructor for the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, and has organized and led workshops, hikes, and courses for various groups including the California Native Plant Society and The Wildlife Society. Chris spends much of his free time with a camera in hand and a plant press in tow, inventorying and photo-documenting flora throughout California.