Originally from the Sierra Nevadas of rural northern California, extreme droughts and fires have left a very personal imprint of climate disaster on my life. In 2021, the Caldor fire burned down my hometown of Grizzly Flats and 221,835 acres of the Eldorado National Forest that I called home. The negative impacts of climate change continue to be a looming threat to rural communities like mine and to people around the globe. As an Indigenous woman, I was raised with the teaching that humans and nature are inextricably linked and are meant to exist symbiotically. Building upon these core values and experiences, I believe that to facilitate a better relationship with nature, we must first address climate change by employing solutions that are evidence-based, holistic, and acceptable to a broad public. 

To do this, I have partnered with government entities, corporations, non-profits, and community members to shed light on the human dimensions of climate change. My experiences have instilled in me a drive to advance research in social psychology on how decision-making processes can shape public support of climate solutions, inform mitigation efforts for severe droughts and other climate disasters, and facilitate advancement towards a sustainable relationship between people and the planet. 

In 2023, I was awarded the Emerging Scholar Research Award by the Association for Psychological Science and received $15,000 through the ARCS Foundation Scholarship to fund my research in ecopsychology. This fall I am entering my third year of my PhD and am currently conducting research with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Environment, Decision, Judgment, and Identity (EDJI) lab at University of Colorado Boulder. 

I am currently open to research collaborations with corporate, government, and research institutions, with a particular interest in mechanisms motivating pro-environmental behavior and support for climate policy.

Lake Tahoe, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A place that is dear to my heart.