Outreach

When I returned to school in 2020 for my dual science degree, the pandemic made it a lonely endeavor. Nevertheless, I met some really cool folk along the way that were willing to help me achieve my goals. As a budding scientist, I wanted to ground my research in my community, and to share what I was learning broadly.

I'm extremely thankful to Adela Ramos, PhD, Communications Director at the Tacoma Tree Foundation, and Katrina Thietje-Weihs, MEd, Science Educator at Clover Park School District. It was through them that I was able to extend my impact beyond The Evergreen State College campus and into the parks and classrooms where I spent my childhood. I facilitated multiple tree walks annually with TTF, and hosted a multi-day, outdoor field ecology workshop for high school environmental science students.

None of these experiences would have been possible without the support of Dylan Fischer, PhD, Ecosystem Ecologist and Professor at The Evergreen State College.

This video essay was submitted in lieu of taking the final exam in Dylan Fischer's and Lalita Calabria's Forest and Bryophyte Ecology course. I'm a hobbyist photographer and I enjoy editing, and I had just been given a Mavic Mini 2 as a gift. So, I traded the traditional final exam for some extra time in the woods each week with my cameras and new drone. 

I served on backcountry trail crews before returning to school in 2020, so carrying tools into the woods is something of a past time for me. This experience developed that interest into 'field-adapted technology' and it led me to assist with monitoring carbon efflux at the Evergreen Ecological Observation Network (EEON).

I recorded this presentation for my project advisors who couldn't watch me present it in Long Beach, California at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference in 2024. This was my first time presenting something professional at ESA. It was exciting to see old friends, catch up with the frontiers of ecology, and share my results with the greater scientific community. I also presented my thesis work at the 2022 and 2023 ESA and Northwest Scientific Association (NWSA) conferences.