As a Community Development Officer for the Island Institute's Climate Center, I lead strategy and project management for the organization's community climate planning team, working with coastal and island communities. I co-create collaborative processes to assess community resilience and identify climate action needs and priorities. I provide targeted, customized support to under-resourced rural communities by leveraging state and federal tools and resources. Additionally, I partner with academic and scientific organizations to design and facilitate workshops on sea level rise adaptation and climate action, using relevant climate data. I also mentor and supervise climate fellows as part of the Island Fellows team.

As a science communication researcher and instructor, I supported the All About Arsenic Research project, where I explored and applied participatory science communication methods to facilitate collaboration between scientists and community members on climate planning. In my role as a science communication instructor, I also designed and facilitated interdisciplinary courses aimed at fostering community collaboration and enhancing resilience planning. Additionally, I developed and managed an online learning platform to provide communities with easy access to resources, tools, and data critical for resilience efforts. Through the summer research fellowship, I mentored research fellows, helping them refine their skills in storytelling, visual communication, and public speaking to effectively communicate complex climate science to diverse audiences.

In my role as a Teaching Assistant for the Department of Communication and Journalism, I independently developed and taught undergraduate communication courses, focusing on storytelling, environmental communication, public speaking, and small-group collaboration to enhance community engagement. I also co-led and actively participated in communities of practice centered on critical pedagogy, fostering collaborative learning and capacity-building approaches.As a Graduate Research Assistant, I collaborated with coastal engineers and community leaders to launch an NSF-funded citizen science initiative, building local capacity for resilience efforts. I applied qualitative data collection and analysis to support and assess community-driven resilience projects, ensuring they aligned with local needs and climate adaptation goals. I also developed a website and online training materials to provide participants with access to essential tools, data, and resources for resilience planning and citizen science activities. Additionally, I organized community engagement events to share research results, promoting peer-to-peer learning and empowering local stakeholders to take climate action.

As a Maine NEW Leadership intern, I assisted in participant recruitment, development, grant reporting and writing, and evaluation of a week-long program aimed at fostering women's leadership and civic involvement in the state of Maine. During my second year as an intern in the program I spearheaded an updated evaluation process that more wholly assessed the program and provided rich qualitative and quantitative data. This data were used in all future grant funding applications and in the roll-out of a successful 2017-2018 campaign for an endowment fund. In addition, I assist with curriculum development and speaker recruitment, which has included the identification and outreach to speakers and panelists from a variety of backgrounds, such as a VP of a large Maine company, a former state senator, city councilors, former state representatives, lobbyists, and Tribal and Muslim leaders. Maine NEW Leadership, developed to address the under-representation of women in politics, is designed to educate and empower young leaders by giving them the skills necessary to become the next generation of effective civic and political leaders. The program includes presentations from politically active women throughout Maine, a visit with women legislators and policy advocates at the State House, and workshops for participants to actively develop leadership skills, such as public speaking, advocacy, and networking. Participants also benefit from the experience of faculty-in-residence, a group of women public leaders who serve as mentors for students throughout their stay.

•Coordinate & create original content for weekly social media platform schedules (Facebook, Twitter)•Document and track university media relations via Meltwater News•Manage & design university website homepage & individual department sites•Write & distribute news-releases to local media, resulting in news coverage in local and university news articles

• Lead interactive and engaging campus tours• Scheduled and organized campus visits for individual students• Communicated with on-campus academic departments

• Facilitated effective and structured sessions• Promoted a positive and open learning environment for students • Strengthened students’ reading and study skills

While my official title was vice-president of the Northern Michigan University student body, I looked at it as more of a platform of coordinated communication between students and administration. I was involved with the planning and implementation of various campus-wide initiatives such as university rebranding and our tobacco-free campus proposal. Whether I was meeting with academic departments or peers I served as the key source of message linkage between the groups. Having my ear to the ground to and making connections around campus helped me and my team to work with a working budget of $27,000 to put various student service projects into operation. Last year alone we successfully provided campus with start-up projects such as our second-hand clothing career closet and the bike share program.

• Organized and coordinated landscape crew members• Systematically worked on site projects• Demonstrated time management and hard work