Across my career as an ecologist and environmental educator, I’ve returned again and again to one question: How do we come to belong to a place—and care for it well? Sense of place has been the throughline of my work for years—whether I’m guiding students through a Duke Forest transect, collaborating with partners on biodiversity stewardship, or writing about the meanings of home and belonging. I’m interested in the overlap between ecology and empathy: how careful attention to species and systems can shift how we treat the land, each other, and ourselves. In my teaching and research, I approach sense of place as both ecological literacy and lived relationship—learning the species, histories, and patterns of a landscape while also noticing the stories, values, and responsibilities that shape how we move through it. In practice, this means helping learners build both competence (field skills, ecological understanding) and connection (curiosity, respect, reciprocity), so stewardship becomes grounded, durable, and shared.

My sense-of-place work weaves together:

• Place-based teaching that builds natural history skills and deepens ecological attention in the field

• Applied research and monitoring that connects species, habitats, and human land use at local and landscape scales

• Community partnerships that support shared stewardship, ethical reflection, and long-term care for local places

• Public writing and storytelling that translates research into practices people can use to cultivate belonging and responsibility