• Worked with villagers in Niger, West Africa, as a Peace Corps Volunteer
• Developed and taught a cross-cultural program for the Department of State in Niger.
• Counted an unfathomable number of jarred fish for the National Museum of Natural History.
• Produced the first in-house “behind-the-scenes” documentary video series displayed in the National Museum of Natural History.
• Volunteered as an EMT— first in Virginia and later in Maryland.
• Taught SCUBA and first aid to scientists and became the assistant scientific diving officer for the Smithsonian Institution.
• Wrote articles for my local newspapers, which included the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun. (My favorite was a travel feature about a mountain biking excursion in West Virginia.)
• Worked as an assistant editor for Weatherwise magazine.
• Learned to code, and built the first website for Weatherwise and the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.
• Became the science writer for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center where I produced a magazine, wrote articles, press releases, brochures and web pages.
• Helped build a house with my own hands and a full complement of impressive power tools.

Throughout my explorations on six continents, I have traveled with nomads in the Sahara desert, collected insects along the Manu River in Peru, slept in a yurt in Mongolia, shared vodka with young soldiers of the former Soviet Union on the Trans Siberian Express, shot underwater video on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and lived for five years on a sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay.

I now make my home on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay with my husband, two daughters, two pets, and an assortment of small boats, bikes, kites and boards.