I grew up in a small town outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and was fortunate to have the woods as my yard. In the woods I found respite, and grew a connection to nature that is a grounding force for myself that motivates my career as an environmental professional. My path has informed by my experiences as a young adult and understanding the different ways the public interacts with the environment; whether through organizing events to engage students while I was at college, seeing how environmentalism was used as a sales tactic at Whole Foods Market, or through discussing environmental regulations in door-to-door interactions as a canvasser for Clean Water Action. In the past three years, I have expanded my own perspective of the environment through my work at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Working in the Air Quality Program, I have familiarized myself with the current regulatory schema in place to protect the Air Quality of the Commonwealth, and have been to a wide variety of industrial facilities throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania ranging from landfills, metal coating operations, and asphalt plants. As a society, there are many crises we face collectively, and the human's interaction with the natural world it has been at the center of many of them. Professionally, I seek to work address these challenges, and ensure future generations can experience the joy in the outdoors that I found as a child.