I am a growing scientist and artist pursuing a career that combines ecological research and creative communication. Currently, I study at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida. Recently, I finished earning my B.S. General Biology and B.A. Studio Art. Starting Fall 2024, I am working toward my M.S. Environmental Science while working as the institution’s Conservation Graduate Assistant.
Throughout my time in university, I have focused heavily on constant involvement in research across multiple disciplines. The projects of which I am most proud are the development of a conservation program plan for my university and the design of an electronic sculpture which communicates data from an environmental study.
As I move through my graduate career, I aim to gain experience in conservation planning and to network with practitioners from a variety of fields in pursuit of cross-disciplinary collaboration. If you have similar goals and have interest working together, please contact me via email! I look forward to speaking with you and exploring new ideas together.
Contact: ghostbirding.art@gmail.com
Why “ghostbirding?”
“Ghostbird” is a nickname for one of the world’s most elusive birds: the ivory-billed woodpecker. It is generally accepted knowledge that this elusiveness is simply because – well, this bird is extinct. Once native to the southern United States and Cuba, the largest woodpecker in North America is now nothing but a ghost, thanks to habitat loss. But in 2004, sixty years after the last uncontested sighting of the bird in the United States, someone cried out: “I saw one!” Wildlife biologists embarked into the wilderness to substantiate these claims. Some say they saw the ivory-billed woodpecker, too. But as far as professionals and the general public are concerned, reports of live specimens hiding away in untrodden forest corners might as well be accompanied by Bigfoot. There is never enough evidence to unquestioningly accept these sightings as real, and so the woodpecker was officially declared extinct in 2021.
I take myself to be a scientist. I am not swayed easily by data lacking peer review. However, I have a story. On New Year’s Day in 2009, while I was just a child, my mother and were driving through the woods to beloved birding grounds. And then I heard my mother shout, and I looked up, and there was a huge shape gliding over the car. It was merely an instant before it flapped its way into the trees, but we saw its size. We saw its markings. There was no other bird it could have been. It was a ghostbird.
I like to think there are still ivory-billed woodpeckers out there, somewhere. I want to dream that we have not destroyed this world beyond repair. I want to believe that there are still things we can do to change our path as a society and as a species. I want – I need – to believe in hope, even if it is as evasive as a Bigfoot or a ghostbird. I have made up my mind to believe that it is possible for us to find not just the ivory-billed woodpecker but also those things, creatures, and people who are most vulnerable among us and to then reach out a hand in connection, in compassionate, responsible humanity. This is the only way we can save ourselves and the beauty surrounding us.