Media Package

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• Brief blurb: The Spark Bird Project is an ongoing participatory community social science initiative designed to gather, share, and study the stories of people’s passion for birds. Research findings go directly back to community partners to inform their efforts towards inclusively sparking and sustaining birders. Learn more and share your story at www.spark-bird.org!

• Event description: Come share your story with The Spark Bird Project, an ongoing community science initiative designed to gather, share, and study the stories of people’s passion for birds! Join with fellow bird enthusiasts to learn more about TSBP, swap stories, and hear what we are discovering from over 350+ spark birders!

• Description: The Spark Bird Project is an ongoing participatory community social science initiative designed to gather, share, and study the stories of people’s passion for birds while gaining scientific insights into a critical piece in the ecology of birds: birders themselves. The Spark Bird Project leverages the tools of social science to study spark bird stories, with research findings going directly back to community partners to inform their efforts towards engaging people in birding. The knowledge gained from The Spark Bird Project helps to craft inclusive experiences that can facilitate spark bird moments for the benefit of the birding community, the new birder, the economy, and – most importantly – the birds and our world! By understanding what hooks and sustains birders, The Spark Bird Project helps grow the constituency of individuals creatively working to conserve and protect our planet. The Spark Bird Project also helps birders better understand each other by sharing spark bird stories publicly at https://www.spark-bird.org/stories and through The Spark Bird Podcast. 

• JLS Bio: Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., the founder and director of The Spark Bird Project, is a Professor of Psychology at Canisius University. She is a personality developmental psychologist who uses mixed methods research to study identity development over time. She is currently a scholar-in-residence with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Jenn received her Ph.D. from UIUC in personality psychology and has been using mixed methods to longitudinally study identity development for over 20 years, most recently in the context of the transformative power of spark bird experiences. She serves as secretary/treasurer for the Association for Research in Personality, associate editor of Journal of Personality, on the board of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology & Birds on the Niagara, as a member of the Council of Representatives for the American Psychological Association, and mentors the WNY Young Birders Club. Her spark birds are her kiddos who helped her notice birds and then fall in love with birding and her ornithologist colleague Sara Morris who opened incredible opportunities to learn about birds. Since then, she has had transformative moments with a fledgling Great Horned Owl, flocks of Atlantic Puffins, a friendly Black-throated Green Warbler, a fishing Barred Owl, and getting to extract and band a Northern Shrike!

• Brief JLS Bio: Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., the founder and director of The Spark Bird Project, is a Professor of Psychology at Canisius University and scholar-in-residence with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Jenn has been using mixed methods to longitudinally study identity development for over 20 years, most recently in the context of the transformative power of spark bird experiences. She serves as secretary/treasurer for the Association for Research in Personality, associate editor of Journal of Personality, on the board of Birds on the Niagara, and mentors the WNY Young Birders Club.