Dr. Christina Aiello acts as the California program’s wildlife biologist, where she develops and conducts research on wildlife movement, connectivity and road ecology, particularly in California’s extensive and unique desert habitats. Though she’s not a California native, Christina has spent over 14 years working on wildlife monitoring and research projects in the state. She recently relocated to Joshua Tree, CA, to fully commit to conserving the species and habitats she knows and loves.

Christina worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Nevada on applied research designed to inform desert wildlife conservation. While there, she earned a Ph.D. in Ecology at Pennsylvania State University, where she studied the spatial and social networks of desert tortoises and their role in disease spread. She then joined Oregon State University and partnered with the National Park Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife to better understand desert bighorn sheep movement near major highways. She helped collect and analyze data that informed the state’s overpass design for bighorn sheep along I-15 and future crossing structures along I-8. She loves to seek out new research with practical applications for managing our lands and species in increasingly human-dominated landscapes.

Christina is a first-generation scholar from the heart of Chicago but is a self-described desert rat in spirit. She loves to wander into dusty, remote wilderness and scramble up boulders for work and play. As a past field assistant once said, “She’s basically part bighorn sheep.”