About

I’m an independent journalist, author and editor who, since 2008, has covered (mostly) climate change, environmental conservation and agriculture for National Geographic, Discover Magazine, Audubon, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Pacific Standard, Sierra Magazine, High Country News, Undark, CityLab and many others. I’m currently working on a book about climate adaptation that sprouted from my time as a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado.

I was born in Pittsburgh, educated in life and academia in Tucson, and have since bounced around the American West from Seattle to rural Colorado. I gravitate toward complex stories with imperfect heroes, and I strive to present the perspectives of people who live the stories as much as those who call the shots. My reporting has covered invasive pigs in the American South, dengue fever in Bangladesh, drying farms in Arizona, Indigenous resistance to mining in British Columbia and fossil fuel development in the Arctic, plastic pollution, electric trains, gemstone mining, wildfires and anything else that piques my interest.

Before going freelance, I served as senior editor of environmental justice for YES! Magazine where I wrote, edited and photographed for the web and a quarterly printed publication. I also helped produce the magazine’s first multi-award-winning digital special edition, animated video, and a series of comics journalism. Before that, I was an editor and then managing editor for a Washington-based newspaper publisher, overseeing the production of six neighborhood weeklies.

My work has earned accolades from the Society of Professional Journalists, NASA Space Grant Consortium, Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and Mark Finley Gold Pen News Writing Competition. I’m most proud of a second place award in environmental coverage from the Native American Journalism Association.