
ABOUT ME
I am dedicated to uncovering and sharing the wonders and mysteries of nature — and all that it's up against. My work has appeared in dozens of publications including National Geographic, Grist and High Country News. I love a beautiful sentence as much as a beautiful tree; I think stories can be as powerful as our mountains and oceans.
I currently work as a science writer and editor at Washington Sea Grant (WSG), a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program based at the University of Washington that focuses on marine research, education and outreach. Along with former WSG science writer David Gordon and WSG assistant director for communications MaryAnn Wagner, I am co-authoring the second edition of Heaven on the Half Shell, a book about how oysters have shaped the environment, cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest. The book will be available from UW Press in April 2023 — you can pre-order it here.
I am also slowly working on a memoir about my biggest claim to fame: completing the “seven summits” (the highest mountain on each continent) in 2007 at the age of 18. At that time, I was the youngest person to have done so — you can find me in the 2009 and 2012 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. I have given talks about what it was like to be a teenage mountaineer to audiences such as Maria Shriver's Conference on Women, Science Online Teen, and TEDx Midwest youth. Read my Everest blog, which has been re-published in K–12 textbooks across the world, here.
Previously, I was a science correspondent for the Seattle news site Crosscut and a contributor for the outdoor adventure site RootsRated, where I covered destinations from Utah to Patagonia. Before that, I was a fellow at the environmental news site Grist; the position brought me to live in Seattle, which then became my dream city. I moved here in 2014 from Washington, D.C., where I worked as a research assistant to journalist Robert Draper. In that role, I helped with research for features that appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The New Republic, and contributed in-the-field reporting to both the magazine and the multimedia components for National Geographic’s story "The Last Chase," which won the 2014 Ellie National Magazine award for multimedia.
I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in earth systems from Stanford University. While there, I also got my hands dirty with scientific fieldwork in Chilean Patagonia, the Peruvian Amazon, the Tropical Pacific, and a summer of scuba diving in Monterey Bay — and fell in love with journalism largely thanks to mentor Tom Hayden and an internship at the Santa Cruz Weekly.
Outside of work, I really love rock climbing, trail running and skiing, especially when I get to go with my fiancé and black lab, Haven.
I am dedicated to uncovering and sharing the wonders and mysteries of nature — and all that it's up against. My work has appeared in dozens of publications including National Geographic, Grist and High Country News. I love a beautiful sentence as much as a beautiful tree; I think stories can be as powerful as our mountains and oceans.
I currently work as a science writer and editor at Washington Sea Grant (WSG), a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program based at the University of Washington that focuses on marine research, education and outreach. Along with former WSG science writer David Gordon and WSG assistant director for communications MaryAnn Wagner, I am co-authoring the second edition of Heaven on the Half Shell, a book about how oysters have shaped the environment, cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest. The book will be available from UW Press in April 2023 — you can pre-order it here.
I am also slowly working on a memoir about my biggest claim to fame: completing the “seven summits” (the highest mountain on each continent) in 2007 at the age of 18. At that time, I was the youngest person to have done so — you can find me in the 2009 and 2012 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. I have given talks about what it was like to be a teenage mountaineer to audiences such as Maria Shriver's Conference on Women, Science Online Teen, and TEDx Midwest youth. Read my Everest blog, which has been re-published in K–12 textbooks across the world, here.
Previously, I was a science correspondent for the Seattle news site Crosscut and a contributor for the outdoor adventure site RootsRated, where I covered destinations from Utah to Patagonia. Before that, I was a fellow at the environmental news site Grist; the position brought me to live in Seattle, which then became my dream city. I moved here in 2014 from Washington, D.C., where I worked as a research assistant to journalist Robert Draper. In that role, I helped with research for features that appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The New Republic, and contributed in-the-field reporting to both the magazine and the multimedia components for National Geographic’s story "The Last Chase," which won the 2014 Ellie National Magazine award for multimedia.
I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in earth systems from Stanford University. While there, I also got my hands dirty with scientific fieldwork in Chilean Patagonia, the Peruvian Amazon, the Tropical Pacific, and a summer of scuba diving in Monterey Bay — and fell in love with journalism largely thanks to mentor Tom Hayden and an internship at the Santa Cruz Weekly.
Outside of work, I really love rock climbing, trail running and skiing, especially when I get to go with my fiancé and black lab, Haven.