My earliest attempt in academia was unfocused and I eventually withdrew to enter the workforce. I moved aimlessly through positions in labor, food service, customer service, and manufacturing until working in the coal industry. After witnessing the unsavory conditions resultant of industry practices I decided better methods and planning were needed to ensure long-term access to environmental services. My experiences prompted me to return to academia and earn my AAS. While completing my associates program I volunteered on restoration projects in riparian and cultural areas. In these projects I began recognizing the role of water in the environment and was motivated to pursue a BS. As an undergraduate I had the opportunity to perform a comparison study examining the decomposition of tea bags buried in roadside rain basins covered with either organic mulch or rock mulch. My expanding interest in natural systems inspired me to continue in academia and earn my MS. In my graduate research I designed and conducted a greenhouse study examining a two-layer approach to understanding the effect of hydraulic redistribution on evapotranspiration partitioning. Through involvement in a lab group setting I gained valuable exposure to the peer-review process and had the opportunity to mentor several undergraduate students. I was able to further apply my mentorship qualities and communication skills while serving as a Teaching Assistant. I was also awarded an internship where I helped produce community engagement events and develop input values for a dynamic regional water budget model and for cost-benefit scenarios in green infrastructure projects. I have developed a particular interest in urban ecohydrology and green infrastructure and theorize that urban systems have a massive potential to act as positive drivers for a cascade of feedbacks effectively offsetting some of the environmental impacts of densely populated areas.
Listed skills include Septic System Design, Watershed Management, Statistical Sampling, Fluid Dynamics, and 30 others.