From a muddy-boots ecologist to a suit on Capitol Hill: The journey of a science communicator & storyteller

As an undergraduate, the word "scientist" had a very narrow meaning to me. In the lab or field, doing research, publishing results. I didn't think of thinks like science communication, policy, storytelling, or anything else that wasn't research as a viable career in science. But I was a conservation biologist who didn't know what happened to my work after publication. Did anyone read it? Was it affecting policy? I needed to know.

My journey field ecologist, to policy wonk, to scicomm training, to storyteller, is long an winding. I'm partially all of these things, and fully a scientist.