Maia grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, playing the violin and singing at the Jazz and Heritage Festival. She got her love of the outdoors from her father, who taught her at a young age to identify the trees in her neighborhood and the local birds by song.

Seeking to deepen her knowledge of ecology, she enrolled at Cornell University, where she became an active member of the Raptor Program and began independent research at the Lab of Ornithology. She soon discovered the niche field of bioacoustics and moved to Haines to continue her study of wildlife through sound. Here, she hopes to learn from and work with the community to create a new bioacoustics program at the American Bald Eagle Foundation.

Dr. Heather Jay Huson is an Associate Professor of Animal Genetics in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University.  Dr. Huson received her B.S. in Animal Science at Cornell University (’97) and Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (’11). 

A significant part of her PhD work was done at the National Institutes of Health in the Human Genome Research Institute and her post-doctoral research was with the USDA Bovine Functional Genomics Laboratory.  She has a diverse background combining animal breeding, veterinary technician experience, and molecular genetics across livestock, companion animals, and wildlife species. 

Her research aims at improving animal health and performance by investigating the genetic regulation of traits, population structure, and admixture to better understand selection, breed development, and conservation.  She focuses primarily on working dogs and dairy cattle genetics but has work in other livestock and wildlife as well. Dr. Huson is also the director of the Cornell Raptor Program which promotes education, conservation, propagation, and research of birds of prey and has recently joined the board of the American Bald Eagle Foundation.