I am a creative professional and content strategist supporting NASA human spaceflight at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and based in Golden, Colorado, USA.

When not telling the story of exploration in space, I write about exploration on Earth—with written and photographic entries appearing in publications such as The Travel Channel, blogs for National Geographic, The Huffington Post, Thrillist, The Lonely Planet, The Wall Street Journal, and more.

I have authored numerous books about America’s national parks, circulating in U.S. and international markets.

In May 2022, The National Park Journal – my first book for Simon & Schuster and Adams Media – will be released. It is an interactive journal primarily devoted to checklist and write-in pages to help readers plan, pack for, and record their experiences in the U.S. National Parks. It also includes valuable information about the Park Service’s history and construct, a look at different park designations, and tools and advice that has helped me maximize every minute of my journey along the way.

My second book with Simon & Schuster and Adams Media is scheduled for release in late 2022. As a sneak-peek, it will be a must-have guide for anyone keen on visiting the most celebrated places in the national parks – and a must-give item for anyone on the holiday-gift-list who has an interest in evolving their experiences in them!  

Working in collaboration with DK Eyewitness, a U.K.-based publishing house, I completed two books in 2020; as a co-contributor to one for adults (USA National Parks: Lands of Wonder); and as author of one for young audiences (The National Parks: Discover all 62 National Parks of the United States!); both examining the beautiful tapestry of America’s national parks. My work with DK Eyewitness continued in 2021 with contributions to HIKE – Adventures on Foot, due for release this summer.   

My first book, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip is a 240-page full-color coffee table book co-authored with Jonathan Irish, as a celebration of our year spent exploring and documenting all of the national parks during the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. Over the course of 52 weeks, we traveled in a 4X4 SUV with an Airstream trailer in tow, navigating the challenges of logistics planning, seasonality, tight deadlines, capturing and storying experiences, all the while managing an enormous collection of multimedia growing exponentially every day. We catalogued more than 350,000 images collectively during out year on the road. It was among the most challenging years of both of our lives – and in retrospect, we are both a little surprised that we lived to tell the tale in good health! I think Jonathan would agree, that we would each would do it again in a heartbeat.   

The project technically began in April of 2015, after we returned from 3 weeks traveling in Antarctica, South Georgia Island, and the Falkland Islands. We returned to work, spending weeknights talking about our days over dinner in our small city apartment in northwest Washington, D.C. That recent time spent traveling through the Southern Ocean was the latest in a long line of big adventures we had taken both together and apart, and it had shaken the notion of routine living. For weeks after, every spare minute was devoted to discussing different kinds of expeditions we dreamed of making – and true to form coming from families of entrepreneurs – big projects to do along the way. We’d traveled extensively outside of the United States and wanted to do something BIG, something different, that was focused in our home country.

On a daily basis at work in 2015, each of us supported organizations regularly planning partnerships with the National Park Service in support of the 100-year anniversary the following year – and a lightbulb went off: explore every park during one year and use our unique skills to teach the world about the most famous parks, and the lesser-known parks at the same magnitude.

Once the idea of living in the national parks for a year was cemented in our brains, we became obsessed, working into the night at the end of already long days – me, building the promotional website and creating written and visual materials to help pitch, and Jonathan tackling logistics planning and strategic relationships that would be essential to taking on a project of such scope. Once we had a commitment from a certain number sponsors and had secured the benchmark for funding we were aiming for, we green-lit the project. 

The Great American Road Trip started on January 1st, 2016 and concluded successfully on December 31st the same year when we conquered our journey to dig deep into the soul of the national parks – exploring all 59 parks in 52 weeks.

This experience shifted me from a passive lover of wilderness to a true advocate. My experiences in the parks did not start here, however. Born and raised in Washington state, I feel as though I’ve had the wilderness in my blood from the beginning (and even before as a third generation Pacific North-westerner.) Growing up, my family swapped holiday gift-giving for holiday travel – a tradition started by my beloved late grandmother and grandfather who found immense joy in seeing the world, picture taking, and sharing stories upon conclusion of their journeys.

I finished high school in a suburb of Seattle, playing sports and singing in several school choirs while focusing on the humanities disciplines I loved most – writing and art. After high school I went to community college in Washington before moving to Los Angeles, then briefly to Arizona, back to LA, back to Seattle – all areas where I continued to attend classes and gain new skills that complemented the professional projects I wanted to work on. With the boom of the internet era and at the dawn of social media, I focused my efforts on building new websites, engaging in social media, developing creative pursuits that connected the new digital model, and started a couple of small companies along the way with varying levels of success.  

With a growing portfolio of projects and marketing materials targeted at the digital marketplace as my toolset, I began working at a small marketing firm handling the day-to-day operations of integrating business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships to help advance the goals of other small companies as growing a digital footprint became more and more important. I had the good fortune of working for a company where remote work was part of the construct – taking me to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to live and work for a short time – which I took as an opportunity to gain a global perspective that I felt gave me an edge in creating more innovative work while expanding new relationships.

After 10 years, I knew it was time for growth and began applying to companies in the Washington, D.C. area where I was living. I blindly sent out my resume – chalked with professional experience ranging from managing freelance and outsourced writers to creating marketing campaigns to developing multimedia products. In 2012, I was hired as a federal contractor for a private company serving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as their main customer (a place I likely would have never applied to had I known in advance!)

As a content professional supporting NASA, I continued working on storytelling efforts, now for government-led human spaceflight initiatives in low-Earth orbit, at the Moon, and Mars instead of for private companies promoting tourism. My involvement has touched major agency achievements including Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1; the first flight of the Orion spacecraft); the agency’s Journey to Mars campaign; and the Artemis program initial branding package, to name a few.) My day-to-day work could include anything from stakeholder engagement with the White House and Capitol Hill, creating presentations and messaging for senior leadership, engaging on social media for a variety of agency accounts, and engaging with the NASA workforce on internal communications efforts.

I retained my relationship with my federal contract and company during my year on the road in 2016, and returned to work at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. after the Greatest American Road Trip concluded. I continue working there today in support of the Space Operations Mission Directorate that oversees the International Space Station, Commercial Space, Space Communications and Navigation, Launch Services, and other operational programs.

When not pouring my heart into daily work, I continue to forge side projects during my spare time – traveling, visiting national parks, and spending time with family, animals, and friends.    

I frequently attend (and on occasion guests host) #parkchat Twitter events which gathers national park enthusiasts on the social media platform each week for the past 8 years to discuss the current state of the parks, upcoming plans, and other pursuits related to the preservation of the public lands.

My collective experience in exploration and documentation of those endeavors has positioned me as a trusted source of information about the national parks; while my professional acumen has made me a trusted and reliable option for projects where meeting deadlines and communicating those projects with the public are at the forefront.

A guest on several podcasts, I have served as a knowledge expert on national parks adventures, culture, and history. My national parks photography has been used as inspiration for postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service; and has been featured in a variety of Instagram and Twitter ‘takeovers’ in collaboration with entities such as the U.S. Interior, the National Parks Foundation, and various state tourism boards.

I’ve had the great fortune of traveling to more than 40 countries on 6 continents, 46 states, and 62/63 U.S. national parks as well as many international protected parklands abroad. When traveling internationally, I make every point to learn about national parks in countries near and far – some of my favorites include Hustai National Park in Mongolia, Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, Tores Del Paine in Chile, Iguazu Falls in Brazil, and the Serengeti and Gombe chimpanzee reserve in Tanzania.  

My extensive documentation and creative projects that ensued from those experiences have been shared with the world through digital, print, and social media platforms.  

Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and GoodReads.