Lang, Railsback & Associates
Consultants in natural resource modeling, research, and management
250 California Avenue
Arcata, California, USA 95521
Phone and fax: (707) 822-0453
Email: info@LangRailsback.com
Who we are:
Margaret Lang is an environmental engineer
specializing in environmental fluid mechanics, fish passage through hydraulic
structures, hydrology, and contaminant fate and transfer in surface and ground
water. She is currently the chair of the
Environmental
Resources Engineering Department at Humboldt State University.
Steve Railsback is an environmental engineer and ecologist
specializing in modeling ecological systems, individual-based ecological modeling,
and assessment of instream flow needs for river fish and ecosystems. He is an
adjunct professor in the
Mathematics Department and
Environmental Systems Graduate program at Humboldt State University and previously
was on the research staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Our associates include talented scientists and professionals
with whom we contract as needed for projects. Associates have included software
developer Steve Jackson, environmental engineer and modeler Annjanette Dodd,
ecologist Tamara Grand, John Kadvany of Policy and Decision Science, and field technicians.
We also have strong working relationships and a record of successful collaboration
with a variety of agency and academic research groups. We have completed Research
Joint Ventures with the US Forest Service's Pacific Southwest and Rocky Mountain
research stations; and collaborate with scientists from (for example) the
Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research UFZ (Leipzig, Germany), the
University of Bergen (Norway), Argonne National Laboratory, DePaul University,
and University of California-Berkeley. Margaret and Steve have each advised
a number of graduate students.
What we do:
Our mission at LRA is to provide quality basic and
applied environmental research with high quality, focus, and productivity.
Unlike many environmental consultants, we are experienced and skilled at
research: developing and testing hypotheses and technologies to answer
basic questions and solve management problems. Unlike many university
researchers, we can often dedicate substantial time and resources to our
clients' specific needs.
Additional information and related sites:
- List of example LRA projects
- Resume of Margaret Lang
- Resume of Steve Railsback
- Individual-based
Modeling and Ecology, by Volker Grimm and Steve Railsback, 2005,
Princeton University Press. This book is the first comprehensive monograph on
how to build, use, and do science with individual-based or agent-based models.
- Individual-based modeling and
ecology at Humboldt State University. This site contains extensive
information on individual-based modeling projects we have been major
participants in, especially the inSTREAM model of instream flow and river
management effects on trout populations. The site provides documentation,
software, and publications from several major projects conducted in
collaboration with Humboldt State's mathematical modeling program.
- FishXing, the tool for
modeling and analyzing fish passage through culverts and hydraulic structures.
Margaret Lang is a key participant in the FishXing program.
- Margaret Lang's home page at
Humboldt State University
- www.swarm.org, the Swarm Development
Group's agent-based modeling wiki. SDG is a non-profit organization that
supports individual- and agent-based modeling and maintains Swarm software.
Steve Railsback is on SDG's board of directors.
- Photos of individual-based
modeling classes and events we have participated in.
Last updated: 13 August 2008