Meet Ryan Hondorp and Liam Talbot!

Ryan Hondorp and Liam Talbot joined Our team in June as general research technicians for the 2025 field season.

Ryan Hondorp

Ryan was born and raised outside of Detroit, Michigan before he moved to Boulder to attend CU as a student in Geography. While a student at CU Boulder, Ryan worked for NASA DEVELOP with CSU’s Natural Resource Ecology Lab researching snow dynamics in the Northern Front Range of Colorado.

Ryan is passionate about working and contributing to meaningful environmental research. He was inspired to work for Niwot because of the opportunity to support long-term ecological studies in such a dynamic alpine environment. Getting to work outdoors on a variety of projects while learning from experienced researchers made this position an exciting fit for both his interests and goals. Ryan is stoked to be a part of the NIWOT LTER/INSTAAR team and is looking forward to the rest of the field season!

Fun Facts about Ryan:

Most of his hobbies involve being in the outdoors. He loves to ski, climb, and raft. He also love listening to music, especially if it’s live.
After this summer, he plans to move to New Zealand for a while before attending grad school.
After a long day out in the field, he loves to eat Chinese or Sushi, and Swedish Fish!

Liam Talbot

Liam is originally from Massachusetts, a city just 25 minutes north of Boston. Before this job, he worked as a ski boot fitter in Boulder. The summer before that, he was a natural resources technician for the city of Louisville.

Liam was inspired to work with Niwot mainly because of his love for the setting of the Mountain Research Station and Niwot Ridge LTER research sites. He is excited to help perform scientific research while being in a rugged and beautiful environment.

Fun Facts about Liam:

He loves skiing, running, and paragliding.
After this summer, he plans to continue to learn new things about everything from paragliding to more technical aspects of fitting and customizing ski boots.
“After a long day in the field, you really can’t beat a root beer float.”--Liam

If you see Ryan and Liam up on the Ridge, take a moment to welcome them to our team and thank them for all they are doing to make the 2025 field season a success!