Evolving Mission & Vision

• Continually update my guiding principles to better reflect respectful, responsive and effective environmental management to more competently steward human choices as part of the environment.

• Develop accessible toolkits & management tools to strengthen informed management choices, resilience of sustainable systems & implement interdisciplinary approaches to reach goals.

• Amplify & support BIPOC perspectives in the spaces I inhabit through conscious & antiracist allyship personally as well as professionally. This is an ever evolving process founded in action over image – progress over perfection. I encourage feedback and ideas on how to continue focusing these efforts, specifically using my skillset.

• Integrate traditional ecological knowledge & indigenous land rights the environmental management conversation & decision making - as shared by the communities those ideas stem from.

The beginning of my scientific career focused on environmental conservation efforts, their interlink with indigenous land rights, renewable energy alternatives & monitoring efforts. In Borneo, I assisted with the construction of a micro-hydroelectric dam in the remote Longkogungan Village, Ulu Papar within the Crocker Range Biosphere Reserve – the ancestral home of the Dusun, an Orang Asal tribe. The indigenous-led organization TONIBUNG & their CREATE Center in Penampang developed a system of locally managed micro-hydro dams to provide electricity to the remote villages of the valley to not only provide resource to the community but to support the indigenous environmental justice movement against the Kaiduan/Papar MegaDam project. This megadam would flood the unique biodiversity of the Ulu Papar Valley & displace an estimated 2000 indigenous peoples in 10 villages. The micro-hydro project undercuts the proposal of ‘bettering’ the lives of these potentially displaced peoples within the megadam’s supposed benefits. The access to electricity with minimal impact on the surrounding ecology proves that these populations need not be relocated to have access to modern conveniences, and supports their autonomy to steward the landscape as opposed to having to abandon their homeland & biocultural practices.

Throughout my Environmental Science & Management degree at Portland State University I helped develop monitoring species recommendations for Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife’s nearshore monitoring of Oregon’s Marine Reserves as well as assisting Robin Bown - the Spotted Owl manager at ODFW - developing a literature review assessing the strategies/outcomes of lethal removal of invasive species for the sake of endangered species conservation. I refocused on how to examine the processes of disturbance ecology & the interface of urban ecology in our society. I contributed to projects centered on stream health, the societal influence of where/how ecoroofs are implemented and the use of green infrastructure in our environments. The opportunities for our human-centered environments to be supportive of biodiversity & threatened species without sacrificing human presence in those spaces - allowing us to enjoy the social benefits living within a resilient and sustainable environment for humans & our non-human counterparts at the same time.

I became increasingly interested in the monitoring frameworks our societies use to highlight our relationships with our environments - the toolkits available to those pursuing scientific inquiry, on the ground management of resource & the public experiencing shifts in our environment - through our own effort and climate shift. The reality is the public access to baselines & the toolkits monitoring environmental change empower every-day people to make management choices mindfully to reach their goals as well as protect themselves & their landscapes in the face of forces like contamination, loss of biodiversity & diminishment of resources like clean water. I witnessed this first hand in Appalachia under the pressure of fracking industry, fragmenting community good will and health.

This interest in developing baselines & monitoring toolkits led me to biodiversity management & contaminants research - the accumulation of heavy metals in green infrastructure, the prevalence & impacts of microplastics as a contaminant themselves as well as a vector for chemical contaminant mobility through the environment & organismal systems. By exploring the tools & information available to people outside of the traditional research environment I found an incredible public interest in how to wield human influence for the safety of the landscapes we love and care for - regardless of whether grounded in research or personal enjoyment of local environments. My experience in marine, freshwater and organismal impact of microplastics highlighted for me the constantly updating methods by which a novel contaminant can have a baseline developed & used to provide context to policymakers, managers & the public. The skills garnered from that research has far reaching consequences in my ability to develop management plans alongside ecosystem restoration, management goals for the ecology of streams, bioinvasions & the personal goals of a landowner trying to support a resilient environment while reaching their personal goals for their landscape.

We are a part of our environment, consciously or unconsciously - so providing empowering access to the best practices to proactively meet human and non-human needs without sacrificing a resilient and sustainable environmental system requires mindful participation. My goal is to support those individuals and institutions interested in systematic, forward thinking management using the skills I have developed & continue to stay abreast of updating best practices.