Jessica Balukas

Of Pools and People Work

Jessica graduated in August 2015 as an interdisciplinary Master’s student and was a research assistant on a coupled natural and human systems research team. She chose to incorporate both ecological and economic elements in her thesis research. The economic chapter focuses on the role of landowners in vernal pool conservation. Many vernal pools are located on private land, necessitating the cooperation of private land owners in the conservation process. Her research investigates the different preferences among landowners and determine the implications of landowner preferences and behavior on the design and effectiveness of vernal pool conservation strategies. Integrating landowner concerns with environmental conservation concerns is crucial to achieve lasting and effective conservation outcomes. The ecological portion of Jessica’s thesis is based on a field experiment in evaporated vernal pools. She investigated terrestrial insect communities in and around vernal pools after summer drying and determining whether human development influences these communities. A strong understanding of both types of science allowed her to better understand and address the challenges associated with environmental conservation.

What Jessica is Doing Now

After graduating with her Masters in Ecology and Environmental Sciences/Resource Economics and Policy, Jessica Balukas accepted positions in environmental consulting. She worked as an analyst at Abt Associates for two years (September 2015 – October 2017) and currently works at ICF, International Inc. as an Economics Specialist (October 2017 – Present). Ms. Balukas has provided regulatory, technical, and program evaluation support to federal government and local clients. Her project work includes benefit-cost analyses for major regulatory efforts, valuations of ecosystem services, hedonic analyses, survey development and implementation, and literature reviews. For the past two years, she has primarily worked on the economic analyses for two major U.S. EPA regulatory efforts: (1) Proposed Revised Definition of “Waters of the United States”, and (2) Proposed Revision to Steam Electric Effluent Limitation Guidelines. She typically focuses on water-related projects but has also assessed air quality improvement impacts on human health. Ms. Balukas has managed several tasks and small projects by monitoring budgets, organizing and dividing tasks, and communicating with junior staff. Since graduating, Ms. Balukas published one paper in the Journal of Environmental Management and currently has one paper for Ecological Economics.

Balukas, J.A., Bell, K.P., and Bauer, D.M. (2019). Classifying private landowners to improve understanding of management decisions and conservation opportunities in urbanizing forested landscapes. Journal of Environmental Management 232: 751-758. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479718313938

Moeltner, K., Besedin, E., Holland, B., and Balukas, J.A. (2019). Waters of the United States: Upgrading wetland valuation via benefit transfer. Ecological Economics. Submitted in December 2018.

About Us

Understanding the vital connections between landowner concerns, municipal planning, conservation activities, and the ecology of vernal pools will be the focus of natural and social scientists from the University of Maine, Clark University, and Bowdoin College as they embark on a multi-year research project concerning Maine’s small natural features—vernal pools.

Our work is supported by: