While I was a student with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES), I ambitiously pursued summer internships to gain a breadth of unique experiences and to better understand where I would best fit in the environmental sciences field, specifically within wildlife sciences. I attended the ACES Career Fair during my freshman year, which led to my first internship with the Student Conservation Association (SCA) in coordination with the U.S. Forest Service. That summer, I served as a Bear Management Intern at Inyo National Forest in California. Internships allowed me to explore different pathways of the NRES field such as research, animal care, and education. These positions have taken me all over the country and even across the globe. 

Fast forward to the present day. I have come back full circle, now serving as a Student Conservation Association (SCA) Community Ambassador. In my current role, I provide support for different community engagement events around the country, such as the revitalization of a school’s urban garden, planting trees in partnership with other organizations, and other hands-on service projects. I am proud to be with an organization that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion in outdoor spaces and has been doing so for the past 60 years. At these events, I engage and network with young people from all walks of life and truly feel integral to SCA’s mission of fostering the next generation of conservation leaders. I have also been newly selected to serve on SCA's Alumni Council. This means I will be at the forefront of the creative process to help develop programming to keep our 75,000+ alumni engaged with SCA and with their individual conservation efforts. 

I am very thankful to have been a part of the NRES family - taking a wide array of courses from dendrology to animal behavior to my semester abroad studying wildlife management in Kenya and Tanzania. The people I have met, the lessons I have learned, and the skills I have gained with NRES continue to resonate with me as I continue my lifelong journey with conservation.