Why I write...
I write to link nature with adventure, to inspire the explorer in all of us.
I love telling stories. As a mountaineer and an ecologist, I've been to wild mountains and forests in the Americas, Europe and Nepal. I've climbed soaring granite faces and tip-toed precariously on knife-edge ridges. I've kept rainforest birds dry under my shirt (ouch, maybe a mistake). I've been charged by a mountain lion. Piranhas have nibbled my toes. I've climbed many, many trees, including a coast redwood tree 300 feet tall. I've sat up all night with pines, listening to them breathe.
I've been a researcher for thirty years... at Princeton, the University of California, and many academic places imbetween. My list of research publications is, honestly, pretty dry reading. The rest of these pages here at your fingertips is where all the fun gets to happen.
My blog, Mountains and Musings...
My young adventurer book, Kid Gone Wild...
My unifying principle, Kids need Nature and Nature needs kids...
I write to link nature with adventure, to inspire the explorer in all of us.
I love telling stories. As a mountaineer and an ecologist, I've been to wild mountains and forests in the Americas, Europe and Nepal. I've climbed soaring granite faces and tip-toed precariously on knife-edge ridges. I've kept rainforest birds dry under my shirt (ouch, maybe a mistake). I've been charged by a mountain lion. Piranhas have nibbled my toes. I've climbed many, many trees, including a coast redwood tree 300 feet tall. I've sat up all night with pines, listening to them breathe.
I've been a researcher for thirty years... at Princeton, the University of California, and many academic places imbetween. My list of research publications is, honestly, pretty dry reading. The rest of these pages here at your fingertips is where all the fun gets to happen.
My blog, Mountains and Musings...
My young adventurer book, Kid Gone Wild...
My unifying principle, Kids need Nature and Nature needs kids...
Some fun published pieces...
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A Late Night on a High Wall.
in Leading Out. Mountaineering Stories of Adventurous Women. Edited by Rachel DaSilva. Book Review "Anyone--male of female--who feels the allure of vertical terrain will find this a fascinating read." –John Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air. Description A collection of inspiring essays by over 25 prominent women climbers.
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Click to read
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Conifer Exploits in California: A Perspective from 30 Stories Up.
Manzanita 16(4), Winter 2013. Published by Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden. Description An exposé of the superlative world of conifers in California: their history, their relationship with humans, and their greatest enigma... told from the perspective of a researcher climbing a giant coastal redwood. |
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Acid snow: winter's white is killing us softly.
Cross-country skier magazine. November 1988. Description Acid rain is a well-known phenomenon in the northeastern United States. Less well-known are the wintertime equivalents in snow and rime ice. This article describes the suite of toxins frozen into the winter landscape and the shock to vulnerable organisms when the snows melt in the spring and release their payload. |
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An Adirondack mountain stream: forest decline and air pollution.
Alumni Horae. Summer 1991. Published by St. Paul's School, Concord, NH. Description Connecting the dots across the landscape, this article describes what is and isn't known about air pollution's influence on vulnerable northeastern ecosystems. |
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A sketchbook of everyday lives. Monthly column in The Expression Vector. Published by Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research. 1989.
Description In science, results get all the attention. But the stories behind the science -- the risks and challenges researchers take every day to do their work -- remain largely unexplored. This column looks behind the scenes to reveal the exigent lives of researchers and their staff. |