WhoGalen Melchert, son of David Melchert, a UCSC alumnus, reserve shareholder, and one of the early field ornithologists at Big Creek in 1978. Independent builder with a lifelong relationship to the reserve.
WhatAn interactive, story-led website exploring Big Creek's research history. Curated rather than comprehensive: 8 to 15 flagship narratives (the Big Creek steelhead study, California condor reintroduction, Timema speciation, sudden oak death in Big Sur, the Redwood Climate Change Initiative, intertidal and subtidal monitoring) woven into the reserve's chronology, with a place-based map showing where research has happened across the reserve.
Audiences
Primary: reserve shareholders, donors, and the broader public who care about Big Sur.
Secondary: prospective PIs and students who want to understand what's been studied and where the gaps are.
Secondary: UCSC and the NRS systemwide office, as a public asset they can link to and reuse.
StewardshipGalen-owned and independently hosted at launch, built on open data formats and a transferable architecture so ownership can move to UCSC or the systemwide office at a later date if desired. No institutional review or hosting burden in V1.
Timeline
Months 0 to 2: RAMS and Zotero orientation; landscape map of recorded research; flagship candidates selected.
Months 2 to 9: V1, with 8 to 15 flagship stories researched, written, designed, built, launched.
Months 9 to 24: Iterate, expand, polish.
2028: V2 for Big Creek's 50th anniversary.
What the reserve gets back
A finished, professional public site Big Creek and the NRS can link to.
A donor and shareholder communication asset aligned with the 50th-anniversary moment.
Access ask
A RAMS account and a 30-minute orientation call with Manuel about querying and structure.
Read access to the Big Creek Zotero group, with the option to request PDFs of paywalled items via Mark.
Permission to cite the Big Creek reserve DOI in any publications resulting from the project.