Maina Handmaker

Maina Handmaker is the Senior Manager of Migration Ecology at the National Audubon Society. As part of the Migratory Bird Initiative team, she helps develop and implement innovative migration science projects with Audubon partners across the Western Hemisphere to advance full life cycle conservation for migratory birds. Maina works to glean as much conservation insight as possible from tracking data to inform Audubon’s efforts to protect birds and the habitats they need now and in the future.  

Maina’s experience spans movement ecology, field biology, science communication, and partnership building for collaborative conservation action. During her PhD, she harnessed high-resolution tracking and remote sensing data to better understand how long-distance migratory shorebirds might respond to environmental change. Her research revealed the critical importance of nocturnal roosting habitat in the stopover ecology of Hudsonian Whimbrel, guiding strategies to support this declining species. Before pursuing her PhD, Maina worked with the shorebird recovery and habitat management teams at Manomet Conservation Sciences, and as the Communications Specialist for the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN). She has also worked banding songbirds at long-term field research stations in New England, Canada, and Costa Rica.

Maina earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies and Visual Arts from Bowdoin College and her PhD in Wildlife Conservation Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and son.