Brad Nahill: Co-Founder & President

Brad has worked in sea turtle conservation, ecotourism, and environmental education for 20+ years with organizations including Ocean Conservancy, Rare, Asociacion ANAI (Costa Rica), and the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia). He has also consulted for several ecotourism companies and non-profits, including EcoTeach and Costa Rican Adventures. He is a member of the board of directors of SoCal Sea Turtles and formerly served on the board of Crooked Trails.

Brad is the editor and lead writer of Sea Turtle Research and Conservation: Lessons From The Field by Elsevier Press (2020) and a co-author of the Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles (2014). He is a National Geographic Explorer and was awarded the President’s Award for his work as the chair of the Awards Committee of the International Sea Turtle Society. Brad has a BS in Environmental Economics from Penn State University and has taught ecotourism at Mount Hood Community College. He has been director of SEE Turtles since its founding and became President after the organization became an independent nonprofit organization in 2016.

Dr. Adriana Cortes: Program Director

Adriana is a veterinarian with more than 15 years of experience working with sea turtles. She has worked in different communities in the conservation and protection of sea turtles. She studied her master's and PhD in wildlife management and public health. Her doctoral thesis specialized in pollutants in sea turtles, focusing on the population of the Escobilla Sanctuary. She also did a post-doctorate at Paris-Saclay University in France on the causes of stranding of marine turtles and mammals on the Oaxaca coast. She has also worked as a facilitator and giving different training programs and workshops on sustainable fishing, medical care for stranded turtles, etc. Dr. Cortes is part of the advisory council of the Escobilla Sanctuary and the State Committee of the Wetlands in Oaxaca. Adriana is a member of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group and has participated in various international conferences and published several articles in high-impact scientific journals. With SEE Turtles, Adriana will be coordinating with our partners around the world, facilitating grants through our Billion Baby Turtles, Sea Turtles & Plastic, and Too Rare To Wear campaigns, heading up our Sea Turtle Inclusivity Fund, and supporting the organization’s communications and outreach efforts.

Sabrina Mashburn: Communications Manager

Sabrina Mashburn is a conservation biologist and science educator working to help sea turtles thrive in the midst of coastal development and human population growth on the West Coast of the United States and along the coastlines of sub-Saharan Africa. Sabrina got her Bachelor's degree in Art History from Skidmore College in 2006, then attended Columbia University’s Post-Baccalaureate program in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology in 2008. She worked in the field in Madagascar working as a scientific diver and community educator for the World Wide Fund for Nature’s International Volunteer Programme.

Sabrina earned her Master of Science Degree in Secondary Science Education through the NYC Teaching Fellows program at CUNY Lehman College in 2014. She then taught a range of scientific subjects, from Animal Behavior to Quantitative Aquatic Ecology to high school students (ages 16-23) in New York City until 2015, when she moved to San Diego, CA. Sabrina completed a second Master’s Degree in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD, and used the results from her Capstone Project at Scripps to develop her own nonprofit organization, SoCal Sea Turtles, Inc.