Celebrating Year 4 of SOAR with shared lessons in the field and in the classroom!

On Friday, September 25, 2026, the San Francisco Bay Research Coordination Network for Student Opportunities in Avian Research (SOAR), funded by the National Science Foundation, held its fourth annual all-hands meeting. This year we were hosted on the Santa Clara University campus by Brody Sandel, one of the co-principal investigators of the grant (Fig. 2). Rodolfo Dirzo of Stanford University is the lead PI, and the co-PIs are Lynne Trulio of San José State University, Leticia Gallardo of West Valley College, Brody Sandel of Santa Clara University and Katie LaBarbera of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Jorge Ramos, from Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (JRBP), serves as senior personnel. SOAR gives college students hands-on experience with birds in the field and in research. With one year of funding left from NSF, partners reflected on their students’ accomplishments and success during Year 4 and talked about how to keep the network going.