BCAS program: Intersecting Birds, Science, and Art - Johanna Beam - Tu 1/27/26
Sandra Laursen
Please join Boulder County Audubon for our monthly speaker series!
Intersecting Birds, Science, and Art
Tuesday, January 27, 2026cookes & conversation starting at 6:30 PM
What do art, science, and eBird sightings all have in common? Dr. Johanna Beam will dive into her personal journey from teen naturalist to research scientist and everything in between. Johanna will talk about all the various ways scientists and illustrators use eBird data in their work, including how eBird data has shed light on species’ ranges and evolutionary history with Yellow-breasted Chat and Chihuahuan Meadowlark.
Dr. Johanna Beam is a postdoctoral research fellow at Colorado State and Texas Tech universities. She studies evolutionary genomics in birds and is also a scientific illustrator.
Johanna participated in Boulder County Audubon's Teen Naturalist program, attended Audubon's teen bird camp at Hog Island, Maine, and studied bird evolution at CU Boulder. After getting a PhD in ornithology at Penn State, she returned to the Front Range as a postdoc with the Bird Genoscape Project.
As a high school student, Johanna's keen eye and ear led her to notice an odd-looking meadowlark. Her curiosity about this bird turned into a successful undergraduate research project on the bird's genetics and ultimately a first-author report describing a new species, the Chihuahuan Meadowlark, accepted to the official North American species list in 2022. Johanna will share more about this story and her journey as a birder, scientist, and scientific illustrator.
Also on Zoom - check https://www.boulderaudubon.org/all-events/jan-2026-program for the link a day before the event.
I'm excited about this one and hope you'll attend too.
- Sandra Laursen
for the BCAS programs committee