Our mission is to use education, technology, and information to improve river management and project impacts.
Our Story
Our story is simple. We grew frustrated when we had to use outdated, inaccurate, and poor resolution data to understand and improve complex river issues. Our research and experiences taught us new tools, technologies, and creative approaches to collect affordable data at meaningful scales. This naturally grew into a business plan, but there was more to this niche. Why just help our business when we can help all businesses improve their conservation impacts? With over a billion dollars spent every year on improving the USA’s rivers, the work is plentiful but the shortage is cost-effective solutions that really do improve rivers. We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to ongoing research and helping river projects and management with gathering the data they need (existing or new) and/or helping to arrive at the information needed to achieve the stated goals.
Why a nonprofit? We get asked this all the time. The answer is because we are driven by our mission and because education is a large component of our business model.
Services: We can be hired in a typical fee-for-service agreement or we can help your project find grants and funding.
Our Team
Executive Director
Luke Javernick, Ph.D. founded River Science in 2016. Luke is an award-winning (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action) river scientist who spent the early part of his career studying and improving rivers in New Zealand, Colorado, and Oregon and later studying ways to improve river management through cost-effective techniques in Italy. Luke is passionate about leveraging open source software, low-cost hardware, and advanced computing to collect affordable data at a meaningful scale to provide valuable information to our clients and projects. Luke’s vision, ambition, and creative approaches have helped launch River Science into a successful nonprofit with strong partnerships across Colorado.
Director of River Watch
Michaela Taylor grew up in Germany and moved to the U.S. to go to college. She graduated from Florida State University with a major in English and a minor in Biology. She then spent a few years traveling ALL over the country. In 2000 she finally settled in Colorado and began working with River Watch in October 2002. For the last 13 years Michaela has been the River Watch Program Manager. Michaela loves River Watch and working with the volunteers and getting to travel all over Colorado to visit with them.
Project Manager
Bradley Boileau was born and raised in the front range of Colorado. He earned his degree in Geology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Following his degree, he worked for AmeriCorps where he volunteered to our Colorado River Watch program. During this volunteer position he developed a passion for working with volunteers, the power of citizen science, and environmental conservation. Bradley likes to spend his free time fishing, camping, hiking, playing softball, golfing, and rooting for the CU Buffs (to bug our CSU-alumni team members).
Administration Manager
Allison Palmasano joins River Science in 2022. River Science has grown a fair bit over the last three years, and in 2022 we needed a lot of organizational help. Allison brings her love of organization, systems and processes, and communication to ensure we are always on track. She is like the company mother, and makes sure we always dressed for success.
Marketing and Communication
Tiffany Javernick joins the team in 2022! It should be no surprise that all of these River Scientists struggle to speak in layman terms and only post about data. We recognized that we need help, and Tiffany is the best person for the job! With over 5 years of experience in socials and communication, Tiffany has quickly made our communication and outreach more effective and organic. I bet you have already noticed a big difference in our posts! That’s Tiff.
Our Board of Directors
George Welsh of Cañon City has been a public educator for 35 years and a superintendent of schools for 25. His honors include 2012 Colorado Association of School Executives President, 2013 Colorado Superintendent of the Year, and 2014 eSchoolNews Tech-Savvy Superintendent of the Year. He now shares what he learned leading rural school systems through his facilitation of the Colorado Education Initiative Rural Superintendent Academy.
Jord Gertson of Buena Vista is a hydrologist who founded SourceWater Consulting and is the acting hydrologist for the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District (UAWCD). Jord has expertise in mine site watershed characterization, snow pack, water quality planning, and drinking water and wastewater compliance on privately owned and public systems. Jord is responsible for managing all of the District’s reservoirs and other important infrastructure and manages the District’s augmentation replacements. Originally from Denver, Mr. Gertson moved to Chaffee County in 1979. He is a graduate of Buena Vista High and received his A.S. from Colorado Mountain College and his B.S. in Watershed Science from Colorado State University, Fort Collins.
Phil Lund is a entrepreneur with a background in business and law. Phil is focused on efforts that advance the "share economy."
Phil has an entrepreneurial focus and have successfully led numerous private and public sector efforts. His best efforts are those that require collaboration, technology, stakeholder engagement and cultural change, both internally and externally.
Recent Publications
Javernick, L., & Bertoldi, W. (2019). Management of vegetation encroachment by natural and induced channel avulsions: A physical model. River Research and Applications, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3494
Fryirs, K. A., Wheaton, J. M., Bizzi, S., Williams, R., & Brierley, G. J. (2019). To plug-in or not to plug-in? Geomorphic analysis of rivers using the River Styles Framework in an era of big data acquisition and automation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 0(0), e1372. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1372
Wheaton J.M., Bennett S.N., Bouwes, N., Maestas J.D. and Shahverdian S.M. (Editors). 2019. Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration of Riverscapes: Design Manual. Version 1.0. Utah State University Restoration Consortium. Logan, UT. Available at: http://lowtechpbr.restoration.usu.edu/manual
Javernick, L. A., Redolfi, M., and Bertoldi, W. (2018). Evaluation of a numerical model’s ability to predict bed load transport observed in braided river experiments. Advances in Water Resources, 15, 207-218.
Silverman NL, Allred BW, Donnelly JP, Chapman TB, Maestas JD, Wheaton J, White J and Naugle DE. 2018. Low-tech riparian and wet meadow restoration increases vegetation productivity and resilience across semi-arid rangelands. Restoration Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/rec.12869.
Nahorniak M, Wheaton J, Volk C, Bailey P, Reimer M, Wall E, Whitehead K and Jordan C. 2018. How do we efficiently generate high-resolution hydraulic models at large numbers of riverine reaches? Computers & Geosciences. 119: 80-91. DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2018.07.001.
Macfarlane WW, Gilbert JT, Gilbert JD, Saunders WC, Hough-Snee N, Hafen C, Wheaton JM and Bennett SN. 2018. What are the Conditions of Riparian Ecosystems? Identifying Impaired Floodplain Ecosystems across the Western U.S. Using the Riparian Condition Assessment (RCA) Tool. Environmental Management. DOI: 10.1007/s00267-018-1061-2.
Hamill D.*, Buscombe D., and Wheaton JM. 2018. Alluvial substrate mapping by automated texture segmentation of recreational-grade side scan sonar imagery. PLOS ONE. 13(3): e0194373. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194373