Meet the Team

I am a senior at the University of Oregon majoring in environmental science and biology. Throughout my academic pursuits, I have gained an understanding and admiration for ecology, biology, Spanish, and most importantly, environmental awareness. Growing up in Oregon, my parents instilled in me a love for nature and a love for life. My individual life experiences have honed and developed a profound interest in experiencing, exploring, and just being in nature. I enjoy hiking, mountain biking, camping, backpacking, reading, snowboarding, exploring and having adventures of all kinds. I love to experience new cultures, new people and places, and I have fun at almost everything I do. I have worked for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for a total of 4 summers, and in the future I hope to use my education and experience to preserve and manage natural resources, and to instill others with a sense of wonder in our natural surroundings.

My name is Lisha Curtner, and I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I grew up loving outdoor activities including team sports, skiing, hiking, and going on adventures! My love for nature grows with every opportunity I get to spend my time outside. I truly believe there is nothing better than sunny warm days in the spring time. I moved to Eugene after graduating high school to go to UO. This campus has opened my eyes to so many new opportunities. I became involved with the Environmental Leadership Program after taking, and loving, Alan Dickman’s Forest Biology course. I recognize Oregon’s beauty and diversity more as a learn from teachers, peers, and observation about all it I recently discovered that I love teaching kids about how awesome the environment around us is and am interested in pursuing it after I graduate this spring.

My name is Colin and I am in my senior year of an environmental science major at the Univeristy of Oregon. I grew up in Corvallis, where I wandered every summer, leading to my interest in plants, sunshine and life. I joined the ELP so I could learn to teach, because I think communicating science is important. This summer, I plan to do research at HJ Andrews, which I hope will lead to a totally sweet job hiking around after I graduate. In my free time, I like to skate and ramble-tamble, and I love lying in the grass. The Forest Team is wicked awesome. The end.

I am a senior majoring in environmental science, with minors in biology, geography, and East Asian studies. I grew up is Los Angeles but was raised with a strong awareness for the outdoors and the natural environment, always loving to play outside, and vacationing in the Sierras every summer. I have spent several summers working at Camp Stevens in Julian, California, a 260 acre area of pine oak woodland with a two acre organic garden and two high ropes courses; in my summers there I worked in innovating team building an outdoor education programs, and also led backpacking and rock climbing trips for teens in the eastern Sierra. During my time at the University I have been very active with the Outdoor Pursuits Leadership Training Program, taking and leading classes in a variety of subjects including: rock climbing, backpacking, mountaineering, adventure education, environmental education, and outdoor leadership. My latest adventures began in spring of 2007 when I went abroad for an environmental field studies program in Thailand, China, and Tibet and immediately fell in love with the cultures of this part of the world and developed a keen interest in the complex environmental and social issues there. After graduating in June I will be retuning to the Tibetan border in China to do research work in sustainable ecotourism development in rural villages. After a year or two I plan to return to school to pursue a master’s degree in this same area or in a combination of tourism and the effects of hydropower development on the environments and local cultures of China and Southeast Asia.

I am a senior at the University of Oregon studying as a general science major and a business minor. I have focused my studies in the field of biology and have a keen interest in the natural world. I have spent a large part of my life in the outdoors, starting at an early age, which has given me great respect for its workings. I enjoy spending my free time in the outdoors whether I am bike riding, rock climbing, backpacking or fishing. I try to incorporate everything I have learned into what I do and I am always looking to learn more. ELP has given me a great chance to learn more and teach what I already know. I truly hope that I can pass on my passion to others and help create concerns for our environment.

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned my BA in Anthropology from Occidental College in 2001. Since graduation, I have worked in fundraising for the Humane Society, as an AmeriCorps environmental educator on the Navajo Nation and at a Bay Area conservation corps, and as an educator for the National Audubon Society in New Mexico. I recently moved from Washington, DC, where I interned as an writer/researcher for the Audubon Society’s national Education Department and as a writer/researcher for the National Association of Counties’ environmental program. As a first year Master’s student at the UO, I am planning to study food equity and access issues in the Eugene/Springfield area. I come to the ELP with a long-standing interest in environmental education and I am thrilled to spend the 2008 Winter and Spring terms with the Forest Team.