Amy Wales,
Senior Aquatic Ecologist

Specialties: Stream and wetland habitat analysis, fish surveys, aquatic macroinvertebrate surveys, plant identification

Ms. Amy Wales is a Senior Aquatic Ecologist for TBG. She performs biodiversity surveys for fish, aquatic macroinvertebrates, crayfish, salamanders, and plants at mitigation sites, conservation easements, and monitoring sites. She has 25 years of professional experience that provide the foundation for her expert-level guidance in stream and wetland assessment and restoration. As an expert in species taxonomy, she also specializes in threatened and endangered species surveys. Ms. Wales worked as a senior stream ecologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority for 19 years, responsible for conducting fish and benthic macroinvertebrate community assessments on streams, rivers, reservoirs, and tailwaters in the Tennessee River basin in Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. She developed fish and benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) metrics and scoring criteria across the Tennessee Valley, amassing a 20-year database that has been used by multiple state and federal agencies, nonprofits, and universities. MS. Wales worked for the US Forest Service as an ichthyologist and educational outreach specialist for five years. She led crews for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), and The University of Tennessee conducting fish community surveys, instream habitat, and riparian zone assessments in large tributaries of the Mississippi River. Her work for the US Geological Survey (USGS) included monitoring stream fish assemblages in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and a Master of Science degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.