OUR TEAM

Chief Technical Officer

Jill McGrady, Ph.D.

Dr. Jill McGrady is Chief Technical Officer at Great Ecology and provides technical expertise and oversight for habitat restoration and mitigation projects across the United States. She has over 15 years of consulting experience in ecological restoration, where she specializes in Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR), natural resource evaluations, and natural capital investment strategies.
Dr. McGrady also oversees a number of the firm’s restoration and mitigation projects, which focus on assessment of natural resource service losses, evaluation of mitigation alternatives, planning to fulfill mitigation requirements, and environmental studies following impacts from mining, refinery, oil spill, and other contamination events. Dr. McGrady has managed several projects with an expert witness component and leads the administrative and confidential aspects of the firm’s litigation support projects.
Dr. McGrady brings extensive knowledge of project management, business development, proposal writing, as well as technical expertise in aquatic ecosystem structure and function. She has multiple publications in leading academic journals and holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Allegheny college, a master’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Purdue University, and a Doctorate in Ecology and Evolution from Rutgers University.

Dr. McGrady's Honors

• Women of Life Sciences Honoree - San Diego Business Journal
• Project Merit Award, Outstanding Innovation in Green Planning & Design - Del Mar Fairgrounds Constructed Treatment Wetlands
• Meritorious Outstanding Innovation in Green Planning & Design; Outstanding Technical Report - Pond 20

Dr. McGrady's Publications

  • Petchey, O. L., J. McGrady-Steed, and P. J. Morin. 2005. Measuring the functional diversity of food webs. In: de Ruiter, P. C., V. Walters, and J. C. Moore (eds.), Dynamic Food Webs- Multispecies Assemblages, Ecosystem Development, and Environmental Change. Elsevier-Academic Press, pp. 334-347.
  • Petchey, O. L., P.J. Morin, F.D. Hulot, M. Loreau, J. McGrady-Steed, and S. Naeem. 2002. Contributions of aquatic model systems to our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In: Loreau, M., S. Naeem, and P. Inchausti, (eds.), Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Syntheses and Perspectives. Oxford University Press, pp. 127-138.
  • Fox, J. W. and J. McGrady-Steed. 2002. Stability and complexity in microcosm communities. Journal of Animal Ecology, 71: 749–756.
  • Fox, J.W., J. McGrady-Steed and O.L. Petchey. 2000. Testing for local species saturation with non-independent regional species pools. Ecology Letters, 3: 198–206.
  • McGrady-Steed, J. and P. J. Morin. 2000. Biodiversity, density compensation, and the dynamics of population and functional groups. Ecology 81: 361-373.
  • Whiteman, H.W., R.D. Howard, X. Spray, and J. McGrady-Steed. 1998. Facultative paedomorphosis in an Indiana population of the eastern tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum tigrinum. Herpetological Review 29(3): 141-143.
  • McGrady-Steed, J., P.M. Harris and P.J. Morin. 1997. Biodiversity regulates ecosystem predictability. Nature 390: 162-165.
  • McGrady-Steed, J. and P.J. Morin. 1996. The functional significance of species richness: an experimental approach using aquatic microcosms. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 77: 295.
  • McGrady-Steed, J. and P.J. Morin. 1996. Experimental studies of disturbance and diversity in the microbial communities of rain pools. Oikos 76: 93-102.
  • Morin, P. J. and J. McGrady-Steed. 1995. Disturbance and the species composition of rain pool microbial communities. Oikos 104: 458-466.
  • Wissinger, S.A. and J.E. McGrady. 1993. Intraguild predation and interference competition among dragonfly larvae: non-additive effects on shared prey. Ecology 74: 207-218.