I started out in the field of biology with an undergraduate thesis on invertebrates in freshwater streams, followed by seven months in Alaska working in remote field camps augmenting wild salmon runs and measuring their populations. 

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After extensive travels in India, Europe, and the Middle East, I improbably became a newspaper reporter for two years for my hometown daily, which was one of the best learning experiences of my life. I covered local, regional, and state issues and amassed more than 600 bylines before eventually transitioning to science writing. Returning to Alaska, I produced a few radio pieces for public radio and got to helicopter onto a Greenpeace vessel as the crew was gathering stories of early signs of climate change from Native villages. I then built a bike trail, took film classes and crewed on two indie feature films, and worked for non profits devoted to economic justice. 

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I got my first real video job producing news segments for a Latin American embassy in D.C., complete with fancy press passes to the Capitol and State Department, before finding a graduate school that helped all my earlier lateral moves make some kind of sense, an MFA program in science and nature filmmaking at Montana State. From there it’s been all Earth science at NASA as I’ve supported a critical weather satellite series with NOAA partners, reported on breaking science news, managed a talented team of producers and animators, and was embedded in an airborne science campaign where over nine years I spent more than 250 hours flying at just 500 meters above the ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice of Greenland, Alaska, and Antarctica.