Ecologist
Katie joined LTWC in 2012 to broaden our team that focuses on working alongside people to improve fish and wildlife habitat. She brings experience in botany and community-based natural resource planning, and a ceaseless interest in grassland and wetland plant communities. Katie grew up in Wisconsin helping her parents grow vegetables and flowers, and her neighbors raise dairy cows. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she worked with farmers and land managers to restore and monitor rare plant and butterfly populations in tall grass prairies and wet meadows throughout the southern half of the state. Katie spent seven years in Oregon previous to LTWC, working with farmers, rural communities, and tribes to plan and implement natural resource management projects. She attended the University of Oregon to complete a master’s degree in community and regional planning, worked with the Bureau of Land Management to monitor and manage rare plant and butterfly populations in wet and upland prairies in the West Eugene Wetlands, and most recently, worked with ranchers in eastern Oregon to restore uplands and riparian areas on their property. Katie enjoys the Long Tom Watershed community, as well as life in the southern Willamette Valley, including gardening, botanizing, picking wild mushrooms, and hiking, skiing and biking around Eugene.