Meet the Team

It is our great honor to introduce you to the all-volunteer team of Happy Sniffing Research, a dedicated group of highly skilled, experienced and compassionate individuals, all standing behind the mission of bringing the endless joy and life-changing benefits of K9 Nose Work® to shelters and shelter dogs.


  • Vice President of the Board of Directors

    Cristin is a lifelong animal care advocate with a deep commitment to community service. Cristin brings decades of nonprofit leadership and animal care shelter experience to the team.

    Since 2019, Cristin has been serving as the executive director of the Animal Protection Society of Friday Harbor (APS-FH). For the past 30 plus years, she has held numerous leadership positions, including nearly 20 years at Teen Services Sonoma, where she was the founding executive director.

    Cristin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sonoma State University and currently oversees the K9 Nose Work® program of shelter dogs and community outreach education efforts at APS-FH. 

    Cristin’s leadership and service contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the Kiwanis International Foundation’s George F. Hixson Fellowship and the 2018 Leadership of the North Bay Award.


  • Member of the Board of Directors

    Jill Marie has been working with and training dogs since 1987. As co-founder of the National Association of Canine Scent Work® and K9 Nose Work®, Jill Marie has focused her attention on the development of the K9 Nose Work® program. Her work has taken her to almost all the States of the Union, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and most recently Sweden. K9 Nose Work® is one of the fastest growing activities and sports in the world.

    In 1996, Jill Marie joined spcaLA and developed the agency’s first Animal Behavior and Training Department since its inception in 1877. During her time at spcaLA she created the HEAL program (Helping Enhance Animals’ Lives) to improve and enrich the lives of the animal clients in the shelter, developed the Standards Program for enhanced assessments, performed behavior modification and placement recommendations and wrote the dog training curriculum for the TLC program designed for at-risk youth. Jill Marie’s tenure working in the shelter environment has given her a unique insight into how successful dog/human relationships are developed and sustained.

    Jill Marie’s years of dog training experience includes developing a behavior assessment protocol for use in the shelter environment, agility instruction and competition, tracking, Animal Assisted Therapy, Schutzhund and canine detection training along with many hours of K9 Nose Work development and instruction. As one of the founders of the sport of K9 Nose Work® and the National Association of Canine Scent Work®, she is a strong believer in activities that enhance and cultivate teamwork between dog and handler. Jill Marie and her dog Beckett were a nationally certified Narcotics Detection Team and in 2009, took First Place in the novice division at the Oxnard Police K9 Inaugural Trial.

    Along with her involvement with the NACSW℠ and K9 Nose Work®, Jill Marie operates her own dog training and consulting business in the Los Angeles area. She shares her life with her son Aedan and husband Jim and three dogs Raven, Grip and Stella.


  • President of the Board of Directors

    Joanna has an extensive background, education and training in therapy and social work. Joanna holds a B.A. with an emphasis on psychology, and she worked in Functional Family Therapy and preventive services for eight years in Brooklyn, New York.

    While in New York, Joanna was part of the pilot program for Functional Family Therapy at the Jewish Child Care Association which has since become an evidence-based model for similar programs. She also worked as an Assistant Learning Disability Teacher at Utica and she spent two years a group counselor for Project Shine.

    Currently, Joanna is a regular volunteer at the Animal Protection Society of Friday Harbor (APS-FH) and she assists with the K9 Nose Work Program and community outreach for both shelter and in-home dogs.

    Joanna’s therapy background, in combination with her current nonprofit shelter involvement, provides her with just the right ingredients to lead a board of directors in a mission to facilitate a shelter-based research study on the adoption rates of dogs that participate in K9 Nose Work as an enrichment activity.


  • Secretary of the Board of Directors

    Kathy has a background in law, canine rehabilitative services, K9 Nose Work and medical detection.  She holds a JD from the Seattle University School of Law but found her true calling while working with dogs. She became certified in the field of canine massage, and for three years, she owned and operated a heated therapy pool where she worked with injured and aging dogs, as well as providing aqua therapy for in-shelter dogs at the APS-FH.

    In 2017 and 2018, Kathy handled her dog, Buster, in the medical detection research program, PADs for Parkinson’s, the first program anywhere to train dogs for the detection of Parkinson’s Disease. Currently, Kathy handles her dog, Rocky, in the sport detection activity of K9 Nose Work, and provides volunteer event management services for the SJI K9 Detection Club, a nonprofit organization for the teams in K9 Nose Work.

    Kathy also volunteers for Animal Protection Society of Friday Harbor’s K9 Nose Work program for in-shelter dogs and K9 Nose Work community outreach program. She also volunteers for the San Juan County Board of Adjustment. Regarding her volunteer board service for Happy Sniffing Research, Kathy states that she can think of no better place to be than becoming involved in researching the benefits of K9 Nose Work for shelter dogs.


  • Research Program Director

    Lisa has extensive experience in the fields of canine sports and behavior training, professional medical detection and sport detection.

    In 1998, Lisa changed from a career in advertising agency creative work to dog training. For the following 17 years, she competed and coached in a variety of canine sports to include elite and national level agility trials, national ATA Treibball and K9 Nose Work®.

    Lisa served on the national board of directors for the American Treibball Association and was a member of the trial rules committee, and was a Treibball judge and instructor training coach.

    In 2016, Lisa became the lead professional medical detection trainer and program director for PADs for Parkinson’s, the first program to train dogs for the detection of Parkinson’s Disease. Lisa directed and developed the training and research protocol, provided detection training for 35 dogs and managed the collection of more than 300 data points per day and led a team of more than 20 volunteers at PADs. This work was later published in Springer: Animal Cognition with Lisa as co-author along with Sam Johnston.

    The work of PADs has been featured on CBS, FOX and ABC affiliated Seattle news stations. Lisa owned and operated her own canine training business for nearly 20 years and during that time, provided volunteer training assistance for the area animal shelter.

    Lisa has successfully trained dogs in diabetes alert service for in-school youth, diabetes type 1 and therapy work. She led the 4-H canine group for four years and currently serves as vice president of the board for the SJI K9 Detection Club, a nonprofit sport detection organization.

    Lisa helped to develop the K9 Nose Work program for the Animal Protection Society of Friday Harbor, teaches K9 Nose Work® at all levels and provides training classes for the shelter with proceeds going to further develop the shelter K9 Nose Work® Program. Lisa is a certified K9 Nose Work® Instructor and Animal Behavior College Mentor Trainer. 



  • Chief Science Officer

    Sam has deep experience, training and education in statistical design, statistical application, and data analysis for research projects.

    Sam successfully designed and applied statistical methodology to the PADs program research data to show the viability of dogs for the purpose of detection of Parkinson’s Disease.

    For the PADs research study, Sam led an input team to accumulate and parse data to successfully analyze results of more than 20 dogs, hundreds of samples, and 200 days of research data spanning two years of research encompassing more than 60,000 data points.

    Sam’s work was published in Springer Nature: Animal Cognition with co-author Lisa Holt, and provided strong evidence of a dog’s ability to detect an odor associated with Parkinson’s Disease.

    Sam has an extensive background in statistical design and data analysis in biological studies in the field of acoustic systems for fisheries.  His professional experience includes tracking and data analysis for Innovasea Systems and Hydroacoustic Technology Inc.

    Sam has authored over 50 publications and technical reports on fisheries hydroacoustics and has been teaching  within the field of acoustic fish tagging and hydroacoustics for more than 25 years.

    As a senior fish biologist, Sam managed hydroacoustic and acoustic tag evaluations of fish distributions, bypass effectiveness, behavior and migrational characteristics of fish in lakes and rivers, hydropower dams, and at sea in North America and Europe.

    Sam worked in the research department of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife where he collected and analyzed data from juvenile and adult salmonids. He also worked with data collection and analysis in the California Department of Fish and Game, studying salmonids as part of a population estimate and species composition study.

    Sam has worked as volunteer for nonprofit organizations to include PADs for Parkinson’s and the Friday Harbor Sailing Club, where he serves as Commodore. He has four published research studies and holds a B.S. in Fisheries Biology.


  • Treasurer of the Board of Directors

    Sandy has a wealth of accounting experience and knowledge. In 1988, Sandy became a certified public accountant and in 2017, she became a QuickBooks Pro Advisor.

    Sandy currently serves as Treasurer for the Board of Directors for the San Juan Island K9 Detection Club, and she was a founding member of the club.

    Sandy handled her dog, Indy, for two years in PADs for Parkinson’s as a medical detection canine and today, she works with her new dog, Monty, as a K9 Nose Work® sport detection team.

    Sandy provides volunteer services for the Animal Protection Society of Friday Harbor’s K9 Nose Work® program for shelter dogs and provides accounting services for more than 15 clients, including Hands to Paws.

    Sandy was an integral member of the data input team for the PADs research publication and provided voluntary accounting services for the organization.

    She holds a B.S. in Business Administration and graduated cum laude from Pepperdine University.

  • Member of the Board of Directors

    Silke is a long-time professional instructor, mental management coach and business owner with an extensive background in dog training, behavior and shelter work. Silke has been involved with K9 Nose Work® and the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW) since 2010.

    Silke is the director for the education division of NACSW and manages the curriculum and continuing educational requirements for more than 700 of the organization’s instructors. Silke is a supervising certifying official and trial judge for NACSW, a full-time instructor at K9 Nose Work® sponsored camps, webinar presenter, instructor mentor and certified mentor trainer.

    Silke has attended numerous shelter-related workshops and also attended Humane Society University to become a certified Humane Education Specialist in 2007. Silke is a Certified Nose Work® Instructor, CPDT-KA, Associate Certified Behavior Consultant, and a Level 2 Certified Mental Management Coach.

    Silke been the owner of HeRo Canine Consulting for nearly 20 years and was an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator for 10 years. Silke holds a BA in Modern Languages and was an English Teacher in the Hunan Province of China for two years. 


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