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What is your role at KEEP?
Program Manager. In this role I get to be a jill-of-all-trades and maintain a birds-eye view of all of KEEP’s operations. I am also the lead KEEP staff for adoption of the DPI Energy Career Pathway which means I get to collaborate with KEEP’s utility funders, Wisconsin colleges and universities, various education partners around Wisconsin, and school districts across the state.
What got you interested in energy education?
I am trained as a plant ecologist with a focus in rare plant population ecology. Once I understood that climate change is one of the greatest impacts to natural ecosystems and that energy extraction, combustion and distribution are among the greatest drivers of climate change, it was easy to pivot directions and focus on energy. Ecology and energy and both driven by understanding systems and being comfortable looking at and questioning data. Energy education is ecological conservation. Helping educators, students, and the public experience these connections is what motivates me as an energy educator!
What’s your favorite thing to do outdoors?
I don’t have a favorite thing to do, but I do have a favorite place to BE outdoors. I like to be in the unbuilt environment in a place rich with endemic organisms, in the company of friends and family, where the smell of rich humus permeates the air, the sound of a stream, birds and insects is not far off, and the hope that all humans have the opportunity to feel welcome and safe in their outdoors, wherever that may be.
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