I work as a Conservation Planning Biologist for Wildlife Conservation Society Canada’s Northern Boreal Mountain program, which is focused on wild regions in Yukon and northern BC. My passion for conservation science stems from my early childhood catching frogs in local wetlands and chasing prairie dogs on my families’ farm in Saskatchewan. It was in these early years, that I learnt about the importance of curiosity and formed a deep connection with our natural world.

Today, I am privileged to work meaningfully with First Nations, governments and other NGOs to conserve biodiversity and wild spaces in the northwest for our future and my children’s future.
In this work, I rely on my background in studying the impacts (and interaction) of climate change and land-use change (particularly human development) on biodiversity, and my commitment to reconciliation, to bring forward new ways of thinking and working together to better protect wildlife and wild places.

My work started in a much different environment: Australia. My PhD is from the University of Queensland’s Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and I later worked for the
Australian Government. After returning to Canada, my work has focused more on developing landscape planning approaches for conserving biodiversity, including working with Indigenous knowledge systems and combining this with scientific research data to try to drive better evidence-based decision making processes. I worked with the University of Saskatchewan’s (U of S) Indigenous-community led research programs, focusing on the impacts of multiple stressors on river deltas. I also worked on planning processes for species at risk and climate change mitigation. I remain an Adjunct Professor with the School of Environment and Sustainability at the U of S, supervising a mix of graduate students and post docs.

I hope to share the curiosity and passion for nature and wildlife that I developed as a farm kid with the next generation and I am fortunate to work with a group of colleagues who share my passion for wildlife and conserving wild places.