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As a conservationist, writer, and educator whose 20+ year career spans the assessment of government programs in Washington, DC to land management in California to teaching science in the deep South, writing and continual learning have always been a part of my job. My training includes a Bachelor of Science in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill, a Master of Arts in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from the George Washington University, and I also hold a Tennessee Professional Teacher’s license in 7-12 science and English.
Career History
Partner outreach, writing, and analysis have been the mainstays of my positions at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), The National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and PRBO Conservation Science. For five years, I served as TNC’s Manager of the Cosumnes River Preserve, which protects the last undammed river flowing from the Sierras into the Central Valley.
There, my long-running love affair with birds grew into a full-fledged bird monitoring partnership, which eventually led to a role as NFWF’s liaison to Partners in Flight, an international conservation effort. Later, at PRBO, I became a lead contributor to the first bird conservation plans developed by the California Riparian Habitat Joint Venture and organized a workshop on the science of open ocean Marine Protected Areas.
Writing and Travel
Professionally, I have developed cooperative agreements, negotiated contracts, and written land management plans, conservation plans, and strategic plans. As a freelancer, I’ve written on various outdoor or environmental topics for BARk the modern dog culture magazine, California Coast & Ocean, Bay Nature, Bird Conservation, Wild Earth, and others. I also review conservation science papers at Conservation Maven.
My passionate pursuit of birds and places of great natural beauty have taken me to some amazing places: sailing to the marine mammal and seabird colonies of the Farallones and Mexico’s San Benitos Islands, kayaking and whale-watching in Baja, birding in Guatemala’s Tikal ruins, hiking in the Annapurnas of Nepal, meditating at Green Gulch Zen Center and Tassajara along the California coast, canoeing the Cosumnes River's flooded bottomlands, photographing on safari in Kenya, cooking and ecolodging in Thailand, and backpacking through Europe with long stops in Wales, Paris, Greece, Spain, and Morocco.
That last destination inspired my story entitled “What Can’t Be Spoken,” published in Best Women’s Travel Writing 2007 edited by Lucy McCauley, Travelers’ Tales. It was republished in To Tell the Truth: Practice and Craft in Narrative Nonfiction by Connie Griffin, Pearson Education, Inc., 2009.
Currently
Now, as the working mother of an 8-year-old, my focus has expanded to include environmental education and how to keep children plugged into the natural world rather than their screens.