Anyone who knows me or has ever talked to me knows that I am an avid animal lover; my dog’s name was my first word, I have a menagerie of pets, I have spent years volunteering at animal shelters, zoos, and veterinary clinics -- I even have a hedgehog in my lap as I write this! However, domestics are not the only animals I care about: wild animals and natural areas have always enchanted me. This is what led me down the path of wildlife biology and conservation science. I graduated from Utah State University in 2019 with degrees in biology and wildlife science. Since high school, I have spent nearly every summer in some remote corner of a National Forest or wildlife preserve tracking endangered and threatened species or rehabilitating essential habitat. I have monitored lizards in Utah, driven trucks through windshield-deep water in Wyoming, run from an angry bull and dodged rattlesnakes while looking for cuckoos along the Rio Grande, wielded a chainsaw in Oregon, and tagged deer, bighorn sheep, fish, and raptors, all in the name of conservation science. In 2019, I became an outreach educator at the Living Planet Aquarium. I now educate grade-school children in hopes that they may grow up to cherish and protect the world’s amazing and diverse animals and ecosystems too. 

 

When I’m not thinking about animals (it’s rare, I admit) I enjoy creating digital art, writing fiction, or practicing my guitar.