Exploring Wildlife of L.A.'s Urban Core: A Community Effort
As a wildlife biologist, Miguel’s projects have included surveying a variety of mammals, ranging from little bats to big cats. In addition to being a scientist, Miguel is an exceptional communicator and educator. Through his work at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, he helps people build connections to ecosystems around them, appreciate the species found in their own backyard, and participate in collaborative science.
—Kylie McGuire, MESM 2026, Bren Seminar Committee
ABSTRACT
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's (NHM) Community Science program is filling in major urban biodiversity data gaps at different geographic scales in partnership with communities, offering a variety of participation models, making engagement in community science equitable for diverse communities. NHM's Community Science program offers projects at the global, regional, and local scale allowing scientific communities and the general public to answer a wide variety of urban biodiversity research questions and collaborate in different ways. Community scientists have the opportunity to participate in projects through contributory and co-created community science projects, reducing barriers for participation. The program continues to operate with a growth mindset that is responsive to community feedback and supportive of intersections between urban biodiversity conservation and social justice. The NHM Community Science program has created advisory groups of external stakeholders, conducted listening sessions, and co-created community engagement strategies with community leaders to build trust and equitable partnerships. As the NHM Community Science program builds trust with more communities, opportunities will increase to fill in more data gaps and collaborate with communities in more ways, including community-led community science and environmental justice projects.
BIO
Miguel Ordeñana is an environmental educator and wildlife biologist. He works at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as a Senior Manager in the Community Science office. As a community science senior manager, Miguel promotes and creates community science projects and recruits and trains participants. Miguel utilizes his mammal research background by conducting urban mammal research in L.A. and leads NHMLAC’s Southern California Squirrel Survey and Backyard Bat Survey. Miguel serves as an advisor on a jaguar project in southwestern Nicaragua that he initiated in 2012 as well as a Board Member for the Friends of Griffith Park and the National Wildlife Federation. Miguel is dedicated towards making science and access to nature more equitable with a goal of increasing the representation and retention of underrepresented communities within the environmental field. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California and a M.S. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis.