People

Emily Schaller's appreciation of the natural world started during her childhood in Connecticut playing in the mud with her brother, hiking in the woods with her dad, and picking flowers and berries with her mom. She was a dedicated Girl Scout for 10 years, which helped instill in her a love of exploration and a sense of civic responsibility. 

She pursued her interest in connecting people to the natural world and inspiring action to sustain it by earning her MS in Ecological Leadership and Education from the Audubon Expedition Institute of Lesley University. This unique program included 3 semesters of living and learning outdoors while traveling across different bioregions of North America in a retrofitted school bus. This transformational experience provided her with a deeper knowledge of herself as well as the role she could play in building connections between people, their communities, and their place. 

She has since developed and delivered a variety of environmental education experiences for all ages at Naturebridge Yosemite, Teton Science Schools, and a variety of other environmental agencies and nonprofits. Emily's current role with the University of Michigan's Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) and the Dow Innovation Teacher Fellowship is to support place-based sustainability education in the Great Lakes Bay region of Michigan and beyond.

https://rachaelshaybutton.wordpress.com/about/

I am a Ph.D. student in Architecture at Penn State University. My research interest focuses on the role of community engagement in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) development. I am currently conducting research exploring education's role in public behavior change toward GSI.

I am the Outdoor Learning Specialist in the Math and Science Bureau at the New Mexico Public Education Department. I have been an educator for over the past 15 years in both New Mexico and Colorado, I most recently was the Director of Environmental Education and Technology at Cottonwood School (Corrales, NM) but spent my previous five years at Department of Cultural Affairs at the Sandia Mountain Natural History Center (Cedar Crest, NM) as an Environmental Educator and Certified Wilderness First Responder. I am excited to connect the work that has been done through the Senate Memorial 1 Task Force, Environmental Education New Mexico (EENM), Department of Cultural Affairs, and teaching! I have  bachlors degrees in environmental engineering, technical writing, with a masters curriculum and instruction, and a teaching license.