Kelly Conde
Whether in a high fold of Idaho, or at the end of a dusty road in Morocco, Kelly Conde is most happy when residing in small, remote places. Her studies and research in soil and water science at Montana State University and volunteer work with the Peace Corps gave her many opportunities to do just that. Kelly is currently living in rather populated Missoula, Mont., where she is working on expanding her knowledge in water policy and writing by attending the master's program for Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism at University of Montana.
Ann E. Fleischli
A transplanted Wisconsin lawyer, Ann E. Fleischli writes in Missoula, Mont. She finds writing can be inspired by a horse, mountains and by a different cultural experience. Her interests include writing stories that combine law and environmental issues.
Ann’s professional project, a website entitled SavingtheWildPlaces.org, described a collaborative model of neighborly, respectful, community-based activity designed to preserve the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana. She is currently engaged in working on political campaigns in the state of Wisconsin while writing a book about how communities and individuals interact to form a culture.
Will Freihofer
Will Freihofer moved to Missoula from small-town New Hampshire in 2005, eventually receiving a degree in print journalism from The University of Montana. Drawn to the Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism program by a strong interest in science writing and photography, he's excited to re-enter school and expand his knowledge in the fields of science and journalism over the coming two years. Will's interests include animal behavior, hockey, lacrosse, skiing and whitewater kayaking.
Monica Gokey
After completing a business degree at Penn State, Monica Gokey took off a couple of years to pursue the lifestyle of a traveling whitewater kayaker. Photos and NGO work from her trips have graced news fronts of the whitewater world. In between trips abroad she could be found working for small IT team at a public health office in Washington D.C. Monica is attending graduate school at the University of Montana to expand on interests in wildfire science and the effects of climate change on ocean currents. She remains a committed outdoors enthusiast, and can be reliably found kicking around Missoula's mountains and rivers.
Kris Heitkamp
Kris Heitkamp is a novelist, barista and freelance writer. With over a decade of experience working for corporate America, she presents a new perspective to the relationship between consumerism and environmental responsibility. Born in Washington D.C., she holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Utah.
Montana Hodges
Partially due to her patriotic name, Montana Hodges has traveled throughout the western United States as a freelance writer. Her works include a series of outdoor books for Falcon Guides. She currently lives aside the Clark Fork River in Missoula, Mont., where she is anxiously awaiting the day royalties exceed expenses.
Sarah Hyde
Sarah Hyde grew up on Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The thousands of tourists that came every summer were the catalyst for her interest with land development, water pollution, and local economy. As a child, Sarah did her earliest journalism by producing a newspaper under her mother’s desk, but more recently, Sarah reconnected to her life as a reporter when interviewing sugar cane workers in Nicaragua who were dying from pesticide exposure. Sarah has a degree in creative writing from Warren Wilson College, where she spent her time out of class felling trees for the school’s work program. If she was any Disney character she would be Flit, Pocahontas’s hummingbird sidekick.
Apoorva Joshi
Apoorva Joshi earned her undergraduate degree in Environmental Science at Fergusson College in Pune, India. A conservationist, she loves hanging out with animals and has worked with endangered species like the Gharial crocodile, the Royal Bengal Tiger and the King Cobra in India. Her motto, "conservation through communication," directed her to the School of Journalism where she aims to gain experience reporting matters of environmental policy and governance, natural resource consumption and mining, while retaining her primary focus on global wildlife issues.
Jason D.B. Kauffman
Jason D.B. Kauffman comes to the University of Montana's graduate journalism program as a working outdoor and environmental writer and photographer. He has worked both as a freelance writer and a staff journalistat several regional newspapers. From his home in Missoula, Jason has explored some of the key environmental challenges facing the West today, including how residents of the region can coexist with top-level predators like grizzly bears and gray wolves while preserving the wildlands and biological corridors these sensitive species depend on. Jason hopes to dig into these rich topics even deeper while completing his studies at UM, with an eye towards expanding his focus to similar stories occurring in other wild landscapes around the globe. He also plans to expand the way he tells his stories through additional media, including video.
Jason’s professional project was titled "A Season of Predators," and was an hour-long documentary exploring the challenges of living with large predators in the northern Rockies and collaborative efforts that are attempting to address those issues. Jason and his wife are currently working together as full-time freelance photographers/videographers in Boise, Idaho.
Tom Kuglin
A Montana native and UM alum, Tom Kuglin decided life needed to get out of the way so that he could begin his career as a writer. He loves the unseen, particularly the animals most people don't see such as the pine marten and the wolverine. As a jack-of-all-trades in the wilderness and a waiter on the side, he decided there are stories that need to be told about land management, sustainability, and the wolverine. He also thinks that he and Scrat, the squirrel from Ice Age, share lots of similarities.
Breeana Laughlin
Breeana Laughlin is a writer and photographer who has covered topics from bull riding to the capture of a turkey thief. She is now specializing in environmental journalism, with a focus on how development impacts the environment and societies. Laughlin has written for Science and Technology magazine, Outdoors Unlimited and several newspapers throughout the Northwest.
Breeana's professional project focused on a Native American Tribe's efforts to capitalize on natural resources on their land by taking over the operation of a hydroelectric dam.
Breeana is enjoying life at a slightly more leisurely pace since graduating from J-school, but rarely has had a dull moment while living in New Zealand. She did communications and logistical work for an educational travel company American Universities International Programs (AUIP) and was in charge of social media for an adventure tourism company, Methven Heliski. She's also managed to get her work published in The Ashburton Guardian, a local daily newspaper in New Zealand.
Sam Lungren
Sam Lungren grew up on Whidbey Island, Wash., where he developed a love for adventures in the outdoors and an ambition to write about them. He has researched the dam removal project on the Elwha River and worked on a commercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska for the last two summers. Though a journalism graduate of Gonzaga University and a current master's student at the University of Montana, Sam has never let schooling get in the way of his education.
Kindra McQuillan
Kindra McQuillan was a kid who stored paperbacks inside her school books and under the roots of neighborhood oak trees. Groovy as Kuzco, she was stranger than her peers, not to mention her inability to catch a basketball without concussing herself. Besides, she didn't have a middle name. So she sought her place in stories and their telling. A grown-up anthropologist with a focus on human ecology, she wants to tell the story of people adapting their land-based rituals and ceremonies to new politics and technology, especially wherever energy prospectors and global warming accelerate change. Outdoorsperson that she is, having moved thirty-eight times and having lived in Europe and Latin America (she speaks Spanish), and always being "the odd one," she is familiar with adapting to shifting surroundings, so in a way, that story is her story, too.
Allison Mills
This geoscientist is swapping Wisconsin’s big lake and her soil auger for mountains and an interview-ready notepad. Allison isn’t quite as lucky as Mulan’s Cri-Kee cricket, but her voice gets chirpy when she’s excited. Like when she’s explaining carbon isotope differentiation or cumulate textures in gabbro. Though Allison loves writing about the geosciences you may find her dancing, digging in the garden or dragging behind her huskies.
Gary Oram Jr.
Dishwasher, forestry worker, logger, firefighter, sports reporter, fishing guide, wood cutter, mill worker, columnist, book writer, and prison employee - having worked for entities as varied as the Montana Newspaper Association and the Union Pacific Railroad, Gary Oram Jr. can claim to know Montana from the inside out. While attending the University of Montana-Western, he toiled for three years as a staff journalist for the Dillon Tribune. Fascinated by nature and the environment, he is working towards a master's degree, as well as on publishing a variety of full-length manuscripts.
Stephanie Parker
Stephanie Parker is a writer/waitress from NYC who compares herself to Lilo's buddy Stitch. After graduating CUNY Baruch with a degree in Marketing, she worked as a media buyer where she placed commercials on TV when she wasn't too busy brushing elbows with the Real Housewives. However, she soon tired of spreadsheets and craved adventure, so she loaded up a big backpack and headed to Latin America and Switzerland, learning Spanish and bad German along the way. Looking for another new experience, she moved to Montana where she looks forward to writing about food issues and indigenous land rights, and enjoying all the beautiful open spaces.
Krysti Shallenberger
From getting thrown off a horse because she mistook a piece of wood for a rattlesnake, Krysti Shallenberger isn't afraid of mistakes or adventure. Though she misses the South, family, friends, and animals, she isn't afraid to leave them behind and explore the West, journalism, and environmental sciences. She loves to learn new things like slickens on a Montana ranch to distinguishing the spotted knapweed, but also re-learning old values such as home, family, and hard work. Her goal is to tell stories of old and current mining towns that deal with the environmental and historical changes in their economies, livelihoods, and the arts. Oh, and she likes to think Jane, from Disney's Tarzan, was based on her.
Diana Six
After years of conducting research on biological systems and writing and editing for scientific journals, Diana Six has shifted her focus to translating science for the public, particularly in the area of climate change. She is an intense lover of nature and the outdoors and is one of the few people in Montana that thinks bark beetles are cute.
Kevin Radley
Kevin Radley is a striving environmental documentary photographer. He has traveled the globe observing various human environmental interactions while studying conservation and development issues. Kevin focused his Master's professional project on coal mining in Montana and the on-going conflict between agriculture and energy production. Currently, he is living in Missoula, Mont., planning his next excursion to New Zealand, where he will document Kiwi life by bicycle.
Kate Walker
After earning a Bachelors degree in Biology from Swarthmore College, Kate Walker taught Environmental Science for five years before venturing into documentary film. With topics ranging from evolution to victims of genocide, her work has appeared on networks such as PBS, HBO, and History. Kate brings her characteristic sensitivity to each project, such as when she befriended families of lobotomy patients during a project on the history of the procedure. Kate also has a history of carrying large objects through dense forest, in her life as a field scientist. She enjoys photography, fresh food, and exotic travel.
Emily Wendler
Armed with degrees in geology and journalism from the University of Cincinnati, Emily Wendler is ready to be a hard-hitting environmental journalist. She's proficient at talking with scientists, (harder than you think), writing investigative and explanatory pieces, and mining databases. In the future, she plans to focus on the economics and policies of the environment with a special focus in agriculture.