Staff Members

Danielle D'Amato - Board Member

About Danielle D’Amato – Board Member

Danielle D’Amato serves on theTurtleRoom’s board and is a biologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville Florida. Her passion for reptiles and amphibians started at a young age. Growing up in upstate NY she was often playing in the woods flipping rocks looking for salamanders and playing in streams looking for frogs along the water’s edge. She obtained her first field guide from a garage sale at 10 and has never looked back.

Danielle holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Jacksonville University, and a Master of Science in Marine Biology with a concentration in herpetology from Jacksonville University. She has previously worked as an Adjunct Professor of Biology for Jacksonville University. Danielle has a strong passion for the outdoors, conservation, and species habitat research, both terrestrial and aquatic. During Danielle’s time off she enjoys spending time with her husband on their farm with their 50 animals, and outdoor activities like time at the beach, kayaking, hiking, or conducting turtle research.

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Kaylin Martin - Director of Development, theTurtleRoom

About Kaylin Martin, Director of Development

Kaylin is the Director of Development and seeks to share her experiences with turtles and science in order to create a dedicated and strong donor base for theTurtleRoom. Anytime she has to name a character in a video game, she names them Chelydra, after one of her favorite turtle species.

Love what we do at tTR? Help us continue to save turtles at theturtleroom.org/donate.

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Michael Skibsted, Co-founder and Managing Director, CheloniaCast

Michael Skibsted – Co-founder and Managing Director, CheloniaCast

Michael is currently a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of Georgia majoring in Ecology and Biology. His interest in chelonians has taken him to over 38 states and six countries where he has conducted field work and presented at professional symposia on topics ranging from Texas spring turtle ecology, original research on California’s state-protected Southwestern Pond Turtle conducted with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, quantifying freshwater biodiversity in the Southeastern United States, and his search for creative ways to tackle conservation issues. Michael is an American Junior Academy of Sciences Fellow/Fellow in Residence, Udall Scholar, Stanford Scholar at the University of Georgia, Founders Fellow of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles and has received numerous awards and grants for his research and endeavors.

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Derek Johnson -Social Media Assistant and Inquiry Liaison

About Derek Johnson – Social Media Assistant, Inquiry Liaison

Derek joined theTurtleRoom staff in March 2020 as part of the Social Media team where he assists with content posting. He is liaison for inquiries submitted to theTurtleRoom and recently branched out into writing.

Derek has always passionately advocated for saving native turtle species. He created his own turtle rescue operation from his home in 2017 called TheTurtleFellow. His mission was to help aid his local community with any turtle-related issues. Finding emergency veterinary care, answering pet turtle questions, or simply moving an angry snapping turtle are examples of Derek’s volunteer commitment.

After joining theTurtleRoom, Derek feels he is more equipped than ever and is grateful to have joined a family of friends with the similar goal to save our native turtles! He presently resides in West Virginia where he keeps a Leopard Tortoise, Eastern Painted Turtles, and Box Turtles. He looks forward to being more involved with the captive husbandry side of theTurtleRoom as well.

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Max Maloney - Staff Writer

About Max Maloney – Staff Writer

Max is a staff writer at theTurtleRoom, joining the education team to help further theTurtleRoom’s mission. He is also currently a zookeeper at Denver Zoo with his wife. He has been published in scientific journals and written species profiles for other conservation organizations. Max has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Colorado State University. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Krystin, and their many animals. He loves to go out into the field looking for turtles, spending time with his family, watching and playing sports, and working on his turtle habitat, aka backyard.

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Jenn Wallace - Lead Educator

About Jenn Wallace – Lead Educator

Jenn is the Lead Educator for the TurtleRoom (tTR) and is working on developing a new educational program for tTR. She has been an environmental educator for over 10 years and enjoys working with all audiences. Jenn is also a part of the team on tTR’s Pennsylvania Wood Turtle Monitoring project.

Jenn stays very busy nannying for two boys. When she isn’t working or educating for tTR, she spends time with her boyfriend in Lynx, Ohio on a 27-acre property doing homestead projects such as gardening, making herbal medicine, and creating wildlife habitats.

Jenn enjoys traveling and has been a volunteer in Costa Rica twice, working with green and leatherback sea turtles. Whenever visiting new places she always finds something in nature or turtle-themed to do. Her current pets include Winkston, the one-eyed kitty, MeShell the Russian Tortoise, an African Pygmy Hedgehog, and her five rescue aquatic turtles.

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Miranda McCleaf - Assistant Director of Field Programs

About Miranda McCleaf – Assistant Director of Field Programs

Miranda is Assistant Director of Field Programs for theTurtleRoom (tTR), working with Andy Weber to develop and execute theTurtleRoom’s Field Programs. Her experience with field work was developed through undergraduate projects such as; Terrapene carolina (Eastern Box Turtle) overwintering ecology, Glyptemys insculpta (Wood Turtle) habitat use and Graptemys geographica (Northern Map Turtle) nesting ecology. To earn her Master’s degree in Biology, she pursued a thesis study to revisit a Clemmys guttata (Spotted Turtle) population that had been radio tracked ten years prior, to assess if it had changed its habitat use while forest succession occurred in a once timber harvested landscape. Besides field work, Miranda enjoys volunteering at the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center, caring for her pet Testudo (Agrionemys) horsfieldii (Russian Tortoises), beekeeping and creating (mostly Chelonian) artwork.

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Zach Braswell - Social Media Educator

About Zachary Braswell – Social Media Educator

Zachary works as a Social Media Educator for theTurtleRoom (tTR) and also cares for several animals in tTR’s assurance colonies. His passion for reptiles started as a small boy in front of the television watching and admiring the legendary Australian herpetologist, Steve Irwin. Throughout middle school, he would feed and care for a biology teacher’s Red-Eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans), Eastern King Snake (Lampropeltis getula), and various large South American Cichlids. Boyscout camping trips filled many of Zachary’s childhood weekends and scouting for native Georgia turtles was always first on his list of things to do!

Chelonians truly became his focus in high school when he read a book about turtles which greatly increased his appreciation for them and where he learned about their true plight in today’s world. In addition to a growing group of chelonians, Zachary is also passionate about amphibians and has many exotic salamanders under his care.

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Andy Weber - Director of Field Programs

About Andy Weber – Director of Field Programs

Andy serves as Director of Field Programs for theTurtleRoom (tTR). He is in charge of project development, logistics, fieldwork, and permitting. Together, Andy and Steve (tTR Executive Director) co-lead turtle surveys in Pennsylvania. He is also becoming more involved with the Terrapin Nesting Project: Leeds Point, which is led by Casey (tTR Protocol Manager / Field Project Manager) and Chris (tTR Director of Animal Husbandry) Leone in New Jersey. He also hopes to see other field projects get off the ground.

Andy received Associate’s and Bachelor’s Degrees from Penn State University in Wildlife Technology and Wildlife and Fisheries Science, respectively. After college, he attended Tennessee Technological University for his Master of Science in Biology, where his work focused on sampling methods and basking behavior of turtles in a small lake.

Andy lives in Honesdale, PA with his wife Jess, daughter Laurel, turtles, cats, and dog.

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