Jill Baron is an ecosystem ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and Senior Research Ecologist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. She has been leader of the Loch Vale Watershed long-term research and monitoring program in Rocky Mountain National Park since 1983. Recent interests include applying ecosystem concepts to management of human-dominated regions such as the Rocky Mountains. Baron is an organizer of ROMEO, the Rocky Mountain Ecological Observatory network, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Mountain Studies Institute and the Science Advisory Board of the Grand Canyon Research and Monitoring Program.