OHPARC Co-Chairs and Advisory Board

OHPARC is led by two Co-Chairs and an Advisory Board, each serving 2-year terms with elections occurring at the annual meeting.

Brian Banbury

Advisory Board, term ends 2023. Brian is currently a State Wildlife Law Enforcement Investigator with the Ohio Division of Wildlife. His duties include enforcement of Ohio’s Wildlife laws, including the enforcement of Ohio’s herpetology laws. In his position, Brian provides input on the changes and creation of new laws and conducts both external and in-service trainings on herpetological matters for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. He currently works with local, state and federal wildlife agencies on the protection and management of herpetological species.
Brian started his career over 25 years ago as a Park Naturalist at Mohican and Malabar Farm State Parks. He led a team of naturalists in outdoor education and animal husbandry, with a focus on herp species. During that time, he also served as the Herpetology Instructor at Hocking College. Brian currently is one of Ohio’s venomous response officers. He is certified in the handling of dangerous and venomous reptiles, having attended a week-long training course with the Miami-Dade County Venom One Response Team. Parts of the training while with the Venom One Response Team consisted of properly handling over 38 venomous snake species, large constrictors, alligator capture and venomous lizards handling.
Brian’s work over the years has included may projects and surveys dealing with many of Ohio’s herp species, including trapping and documentation of Wood Turtles in Trumbull County in 2000.

Jeremy Barkley

Advisory Board, term ends 2022. Jeremy Barkley currently serves with the Notre Dame Mission Volunteers AmeriCorps team as a Naturalist with Five Rivers MetroParks in Dayton. In this role, he provides a variety of outdoor educational programs throughout the Dayton community. After completing his service as an AmeriCorps member, Jeremy plans to further his education in a graduate program. Jeremy is a 2017 graduate of Wittenberg University, where he majored in Environmental Science with a focus on Wildlife Management. While at Wittenberg he assisted in the husbandry and care of the school’s captive Mexican Kingsnake population, conducted herpetological surveys during several trips to Mississippi, and participated in survey projects for Spotted Turtles and Kirtland’s snakes near Springfield, Ohio. Through his experiences, Jeremy has developed a passion for connecting community members, especially young people, to nature. Because amphibians and reptiles are especially susceptible to environmental changes and habitat loss, it is now more pressing than ever to inspire a new generation to fight for the preservation of natural areas. He is excited to serve on the advisory board for OHPARC to further herpetological conservation in his community.

Aaron Crank

Advisory Board, term ends 2024. Aaron grew up with a deep love of reptiles and amphibians and obtained his B.S. in Natural Science from Shawnee State University in 2021. He has assisted in various projects with local and federal organizations surveying for red-bellied, smooth earth and kirtland’s snakes, four-toed and midland mud salamanders and additional species throughout southern Ohio. Aaron enjoys sharing his love of wildlife through his photography and as a naturalist at Shawnee State Park and intends to pursue a Master’s program in wildlife conservation.

Matt Cross

Advisory Board, term ends 2022. Past OHPARC Co-Chair (2017-2021). I am a conservation biologist with a background in landscape ecology and GIS. My research interests are broad, but have focused on conservation planning for reptiles and amphibians by exploring the effects of habitat management and fragmentation on movement and distributions. I am currently a conservation biologist for the Toledo Zoo where my work includes population assessments and spatial ecology studies of native reptiles and amphibians.

Ryan Dumas

Advisory Board, term ends 2023. Ryan was a late bloomer in the field of wildlife. Although he grew up in Greater Cincinnati spotting Garter Snakes and Leopard Frogs, it wasn’t until his first year in college that the world of Herpetology found him. After interning at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Reptile House, his path was set. Since graduating from Northern Kentucky University, Ryan has worked in a number of AZA accredited institutions, including the National Aquarium and Bronx Zoo. After returning to Cincinnati in 2014, Ryan realized Cincinnati was home and he has been here ever since! Ryan is currently the Head Keeper of Herpetology and Fish at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. He is also the President of one of the oldest established Herpetological Societies in the United States, the Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society. For Ryan, Herpetology has become more than a passion. It’s a way of life. He is also a proud husband and father of two wonderful kids!.

Sarah Kitson

Advisory Board, term ends 2023. Sarah Kitson works as a Land Steward for Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s southern and western regions. This involves visiting a portion of the many publicly and privately owned properties in northern Ohio that are permanently conserved with conservation easements. Sarah obtained her B.S. in Biology from Kent State University in 2013. During that time, she completed an undergraduate thesis project studying larval wood frog growth in response to vernal pool leaf litter composition. Sarah went on to acquire her M.S. in Biology from Ohio University in 2016 studying hatchling Diamond-backed Terrapin performance and survivorship for her thesis. Sarah is pleased to continue her involvement with the herpetological community by serving on the OHPARC advisory board and working with reptiles and amphibians on permanently conserved properties.

Greg Lipps

Advisory Board, term ends 2023. Greg is the past Co-Chair of OHPARC (2017-2020) and the Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Coordinator at Ohio State University’s Ohio Biodiversity Conservation Partnership. His career has focused on developing and implementing plans to ensure the conservation of Ohio’s herp species. Recent projects have included recovery of the Eastern Hellbender and Massasauga. While his work often includes research to investigate life history requirements or to determine the most effective surveying and monitoring techniques, it just as often is about building relationships with partners and landowners that he believes are necessary for conservation to be successful. Greg’s work has taken him to every corner of the state, with projects focused on Green Salamanders, Cave Salamanders, Four-toed Salamanders, Spotted Turtles, and Blanding’s Turtles. He routinely collaborates with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and staff of Ohio’s zoos, land trusts, park districts, soil and water conservation districts, and nature centers. Greg is originally from Cincinnati, worked as a zookeeper at the Toledo Zoo, is an editor and contributor to Amphibians of Ohio (2013) and Reptiles of Ohio (2021), and is a past Co-Chair of Midwest PARC. He currently resides in the Oak Openings Region in southeast Fulton County. https://u.osu.edu/lipps.37/

Bill Peterman

Advisory Board, term ends 2022. I am an Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology with the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State University. Originally from Michigan, I’ve spent time in Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois. I have had a life-long passion for reptiles and amphibians, and have had the good fortune to make a career of studying the ecology of these animals. I have a particular fondness for plethodontid salamanders, but past and present research has focused on turtles, pool-breeding amphibians, and timber rattlesnakes. Ultimately, my research seeks to answer fundamental ecological questions to serve as the foundation for informed management and conservation of landscapes as well as the wildlife communities that inhabit them. My lab is currently focused on a variety of applied ecological and conservation questions in Ohio and the southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Find out more at http://petermanresearch.weebly.com/.

Richard Phillips

Advisory Board, term ends 2023. Despite a brief stint working as a tech on montane rattlesnakes in the Southwestern United States, Richard was primarily involved with mammals and game birds before joining the staff at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH. Upon his arrival in Ohio, he began to recognize the power associated with undergraduate exposure to herpetology. Since 2010, he has led an annual field study to retired farmland in Mississippi capturing, chasing, morphologically identifying, and releasing reptiles and amphibians – emphasizing the ecological aspects of what species they find and where. He believes reptiles and amphibians are ideal models to learn about the principles of ecology and tries to include students in his endeavors as much as possible. His current work with reptiles attempts to increase efficiency for sampling of species with potentially low detection rates. Local populations of spotted turtles and Kirtland’s snake are currently being surveyed to estimate population numbers and hopefully inform stakeholders on the most effective timeframes and methods for detecting the species. Read more at: https://www5.wittenberg.edu/academics/biology/facultystaff/phillips.html

Megan Seymour

Co-Chair, term ends 2023. Megan Seymour is a Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) in the Columbus, Ohio Ecological Services Field Office, where she has worked for the past 18 years. Her work is focused on implementation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) including listing, consultation, recovery, and delisting of endangered and threatened species. She was the co-author of the recovery plan for the federally threatened Lake Erie Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon insularum), and lead for recovery implementation and delisting. The Lake Erie Watersnake was delisted in 2011, the 23rd species to be delisted due to recovery nationwide. Megan is currently working on a species status assessment for the Kirtland’s snake (Clonophis kirtlandii), to evaluate if this species warrants listing under the ESA. Megan received her Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude, in Wildlife Management from The Ohio State University, School of Natural Resources, in 2000.

Nicholas A. Smeenk

Co-Chair, term ends 2022. Nicholas A. Smeenk is the Research Associate for the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Program in the Ohio Biodiversity Conservation Partnership at The Ohio State University. His current research is focused on the conservation and ecology of threatened and endangered reptile and amphibian species in Ohio including the Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) and the Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus). He received a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Resources from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. His Masters of Science in Environmental Studies is from Ohio University where he studied the population ecology of a headstarted population of Diamondback Terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) in the Chesapeake Bay. (Photograph by Greg Lipps.)

Ryan Wagner

Advisory Board, term ends 2022. Ryan is a Master’s student at the Ohio State University studying the status and distribution of the Mudpuppy Salamander in Ohio. He earned his undergraduate degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from Ohio University in 2020. Ryan has worked on a number of reptile and amphibian research projects from Eastern Box Turtles in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest, to Hellbenders in Pennsylvania, and Northern Spring Salamanders in New Hampshire. During his undergrad, he completed an honors thesis predicting hotspots of snake road mortality in southeastern Ohio. Ryan is an avid outdoorsman, herper, birder, and wildlife photographer (his photo of an eastern gartersnake was chosen to be the 2018 Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp). He is passionate about sharing science with the public, maintains a wildlife photography website at ryanbwagner.com, and writes science and conservation articles.