Hi everyone! My updates have been regrettably sparse. But here's a look at what I am working on this summer! Fieldwork for my thesis research at the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change project, where I am hoping to study drought responses of Minnesota's tree species and adaptive management strategies for the future. Check out the University of Minnesota's Fieldwork Feature!

Just a little update that I started my PhD at the University of Minnesota this past fall (September 2017) in the Natural Resources Science and Management Program (NRSM). It was certainly a big move back to Minnesota from Oregon. You can read a bit more about me and my and other graduate students' work on the NRSM Fellows page, as well as on the Montgomery Lab webpage. I am also very excited to be a Northeast Climate Science Center Graduate Fellow, and you can read a bit about me there. I am sure I will have many new updates to follow. Thank you! 

I'm very glad to inform that a couple months past, on December 12th, I successfully defended my Master's degree. Then, in January I officially submitted my thesis and graduated! I am now in the process of sorting out the steps towards possibly beginning a PhD. For a little while, though, I will be taking some much needed time for rest.

In the meantime, please feel welcome to have a look at my thesis, available through the Oregon State University archives, titled: Physiological Responses of Loblolly Pine and Douglas-fir to Timing and Frequency of Drought Stress 

Thank you very much to all that have helped me along the way!

For many, the past weeks and months have been devastating. Depressing, discouraging, enraging. An emboldening of hateful preexisting realities and mentalities pervading this country. For me, over the past many months and over the years of my life, I have felt -- each and every day -- the rising of my heart in the back of my throat. A feeling of dread and despair for such pervasiveness, from the reality of hate.

In my short life and in my narrow experience, what I alone have seen of this world is enough to break my heart.  

In these past weeks has come a decisive blow.  

No matter what, I cannot understand how the hearts of so many, especially those with power even slight, are so capable of immunity to this. Of indifference. It is not because other hearts are stronger than mine that they are intact. And no, although each day I strive to learn more of the experiences of those outside of myself and though I may yet have much more to learn, I am not wounded because I am new or innocent, as a child, to the injustices and hurts of this world.

Though I would be clear: I have known relatively little, in the scheme of death, and suffering, and war, and pain. I live with some of the greatest privilege. Aside from my womanhood. But in that too, because of the color of my skin, because of my ability, because of the country that I was born to, I am privileged.

So, for one such as I, it is unfair -- it is absurd, it is pathetic -- to complain of a heart that is broken. I do not claim that right. Not when there are little children dying in attacks in places like Syria, or ignored or overlooked in my own country, and when men and women in my own country are murdered and imprisoned and oppressed and beaten for the color of their skin. No, my experiences cannot compare. My own existential struggles, my own struggles of faith and sorrow and humanity -- those pale in the comparison to much greater pains.  

Still, I would have it known to those whose hearts are indifferent, because I do not know what else to say anymore and I am begging you. To the friends of mine who continue to act with close-mindedness, who continue to embrace hate and fear and support rhetoric that would bar others from safe haven even when you are told that it is wrong, who are unwilling to embrace kindness first, who blindly follow the interpretations of interpretations of hearsay of their own small worldviews rather than pause to listen, who legitimize or justify or excuse or uphold or entertain hatefulness, to those who have plenty yet wish for more while others lack, to those who lay down their heads at night with reasonable assurance that they will wake, to those who dare to think for one moment that their own life is more worthy of safety, to those who weigh the validity of another human's worth before bothering to question the validity of their own comfort. Each and every day, you who obstructs the path of peace and kindness, each and every day you who spurns those whom do not look or pray or speak or love as you do: you break my heart. 

It is not for my sake that you should care. The tender heart of a young woman such as me, that is the last thing that you -- you who are hateful, you who is indifferent -- have to answer for in this moment. 

But I want you to know, indifferent person, because I have no other means left to reach you. Again and again, friends, family, fellow Americans, those of you who have power from your privilege and you use it to defend the freedoms of the hateful before you defend literal lives, you break my heart. 

Nothing that is happening now in the United States or that is happening across this planet is exceptionally unique, and many know this more intimately than I. That ubiquity is not meant to comfort. It is cementing. It is infuriating. It is appalling. For some, regrettably, it the reality of existence. All of these are words which do little justice to the astonishing ability of humans to hate. Still, I think across hours, days, years -- across time -- and I am struck again and again by the cruelty of my fellow humans. I am reminded of the continuum of human history, and of the short but vicious history of the United States, which in those years alone spans genocide, slavery, misogyny and ongoing oppression.

Still, I cannot comprehend such indifference as I see in this world, particularly from those with privilege.

And of course, there is goodness in the world, too. I am reminded also of the many kind and resilient people who have walked and who still walk this earth. In their example, I mend and improve myself. In their example, I try again and again to repair and to build a more compassionate, more enduring, more learned, more strong-willed heart from the fissures in my own. But the stark contrast of good and cruelty, and the vast, painful ambiguity of all that is in between, feels many days to be an insurmountable wall. How much suffering, how many lessons of history, how many times must this play out? What would be enough, for those of you who are still hateful, to open your hearts?

What reasoning would finally be enough for you, to know that there are men and women and children who are desperate for safety and to welcome them? What reasoning would finally be enough for you to look at those who are different from yourself, and to love first? So many questions burgeon within me. 

In these past days, it is dangerous not to keep these questions in my mind. For, it seems increasingly that if one looks away for but a moment, the enmity of this world is all the quicker to encroach. 

It is something I have never been able to comprehend, the unkindness of so many who have so much. Yet, so very often, those without are selflessly generous. These days, such hurts and such confusion and such divides continue to play out on a national and global level.

My privilege has retained for me the right to speak up, at least for a time and at least in some measure. I take that very seriously. But I plan and remind myself each and everyday to use whatever power that I have, for the sake of good in spite of the reality of people in my own country who cling to their hatreds, misconceptions, and selfish fears. 

I harbor each of these hurts like a thorn, and I remember it. Though it is enough to break my soft and sheltered heart, it is not enough to break my resolve. It is not enough to break my voice. Nor should it, for there are much greater fights where effort should be spent rather than within my own chest. Now is not the time, except that I share this as a desperate plea.

Because I hope, if you have the gall to act with such hatefulness that would cast aside your fellow humans fleeing fear and death and persecution, the gall to place yourselves as more worthy of peace and safety than any other, that you also have the gall to look me in the eyes as you turn in the knife to my heart too. For, perhaps you will never meet the ones who your decisions and your words and your actions (or your inaction) devastate through their consequence. Perhaps you will never know or admit or relate to the resounding tragedies of the policies that you support, or the politics that you embrace because they do not harm you personally. Perhaps your empathy is unable to extend beyond those in your immediate awareness.

But you have met me. And I am telling you just what you do. Remember it. If I live a hundred years, though I mend my heart and forge on despite you, I will not forget it. 

Today I participated in one of many, many, many Women's Marches occurring across the United States and across the world. The march I attended was in a much smaller city. But I was very pleased to see an attendance estimated between 95-100 people (and overjoyed to see the estimated 2.9 million people nationally). The atmosphere was peaceful and open. Before marching and after marching, attendees stood along the sidewalk outside of the County Courthouse, holding their signs towards the cars driving past. There were many honks of support, peace-signs, friendly waves and nods. It was encouraging.

About 80% of what I observed from cars and bystanders was positive and supportive. To be expected, however, there were a few pro-trump calls. This did not surprise, or particularly phase me. One did incident did.

"Be nice, be nice, be nice" one woman chided in warning from a passing car. She sat in the passenger seat, window rolled down and in the nearest lane to us as the car slowed ever-so-much while driving past. She ended with something along the lines of "trump" or "trump won", or other such intone of his name. She did not shout, but it was clear she wanted it to be heard. The meaning was clear too.

 I am writing on the eve of the inauguration of a man who, like many wealthy white men before him, has ridden to power on the backs of the oppressed. I am writing as our Nation's most ugly, corrupt, and unjust legacies embody themselves corporeally, and take an open and unabashed seat of overt leadership. Again and again, I have contemplated what this means for a country.

None of the rhetoric that the president-elect soon-to-be president espouses is new, novel, unique, or surprising, although it is not normal and should never be normal. It is, however, ​business as usual, based on the United State's track-record. Just a bit more in-your-face. His mentalities and platforms are very firmly grounded in the inheritance of genocide, rape, theft, slavery, and entitlement that form the foundation of the United States.  One look at our history should inform you of this. Indeed, you may already be aware of this if you pay one ounce of attention to the experiences of your fellow humans or if you are someone who experiences oppression. (1)

Those beloved founding fathers? I find most of them abhorrent in their treatment of those who did not possess a y-chromosome and did not have their same pale complexion. So, given all of that, this outcome is not shocking. If you are shocked, you need to educate yourself. It is, however, painful. Frankly, I have never expected much of anything from the White people of this country, very little from men, and much less from the wealthy. And least of all from the wealthy White man. It is a lot to expect, after all, that someone might inherently possess the qualities of human decency, empathy, and respect for life. (2) ​

Perhaps you can sense my exasperation.  But in that exasperation, what I keep coming back to is this: in the test of a nation, we have failed. Many times over.

"There are many white people who mean right and in their hearts wanna do right. If 10,000 snakes were coming down that aisle now, and I had a door that I could shut, and in that 10,000, 1,000 meant right, 1,000 rattlesnakes didn’t want to bite me, I knew they were good... Should I let all these rattlesnakes come down, hoping that that thousand get together and form a shield? Or should I just close the door and stay safe?"
 
Some of you have heard this quote before, from an interview of Muhammad Ali in 1971, and many have shared it already in past months or years or even at the time. I urge you to watch him speak the full quote himself. It is all the more true, relevant, and painful once again today. A cautionary tale. A painful one. Please, no matter who you supported, read this and try to understand. So that we can work forward.
 
There were 10,000 snakes coming down that aisle.
 
And many were professedly, blatantly, and proudly willing to bite. The rest? They formed no shield.
 
White people, privileged people, safe people, let those rattlesnakes descend upon our fellow Americans. We were those rattlesnakes. We have shown our natures – confirmed the question, time and time again, when it comes down to it. Even those who "mean right and in their hearts wanna do right." Some, in the form of direct votes for the man just elected, and some, in not voting. Or others, in a lack of care, lack of empathy, lack of sight, lack of seriousness, lack of responsibility, lack of dedication, lack of listening. . . We did not do all that we could to stop an unsafe and hateful situation, and instead tolerated it. It disgusts me that I have to explain this, that white people still do not get it, did not and do not take things seriously. In all of this, I also want to avoid stroking the egos of white people by inflating their sense of importance. There are too many out there already with White Savior mentalities. That is not what I want. That's not what anyone wants. I highly doubt that is what Muhammad Ali's quote is suggesting by a shield -- his quote is saying that there have been violent, hateful, and racist people who identify as white. Despite those white people who are honestly "good", the fact remains that there is a danger to people of color. And that, unfortunately, white people historically and presently cannot be relied upon to do what is required of them: confront the racism in themselves, and stand up against the racism in other white people. Especially if it causes them inconvenience or discomfort. So, it seems the safer, more logical choice to avoid white people altogether. That it is certainly, based on this, in one's best interest to be wary. (And Muhammad Ali goes on to explain that he cannot so quickly forget the 400 years of lynching, killing, rape, and injustices and ignore all of that when he sees a white person)

After this election and its rhetoric, after so much of the history of this country in particular.... it is very hard to disagree. Especially when the odds of a bite are, perhaps, far more likely than one in ten. It would seem so, when I look at a map of the vote of this country.

So, I try to avoid speaking about politics except in very trusted situations because it rarely ends up being productive and, as a woman, I've had mostly belittling and discouraging experiences in the past when it comes to speaking up. But I’m angry. Please excuse my abnormally blunt language.

Here are some things I need to get off my chest. After watching the final presidential debate, there should be literally zero doubt in your mind about who you should be voting for this election. Zero. Throughout the three debates, I have swung from appalled and terrified (whenever Trump speaks) to encouraged and affirmed (whenever Hillary speaks). And if you are thinking of voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein instead of Hillary Clinton, I have serious misgivings about your standards for a president and urge you to reflect on your life decisions (the word hypocrite comes to mind). If you are not planning to vote, please leave. Leave now. Because for some reason you think my life, my rights, and my dignity, along with the lives, rights, and dignities of so many others, are not valuable. There are many others who wish they had your right to vote. If you are voting for Trump, get the hell away from me.

While in all of this, I support your freedoms, I have some things to say:

This past weekend, I had the very exciting opportunity to participate in an art festival for the first time, the Corvallis Fall Festival! When I moved to Corvallis to begin graduate school at OSU two year's past, and attended the Corvallis Fall Festival, I began to hope that I could participate in a future year. An art festival is something that has hovered in my aspirations for years, though I never imagined it could come to fruition. It was always a lofty goal that seemed out of reach. Growing up in Minneapolis, ever since I was very young I would attend the Uptown Art Fair each year and marvel at the amazing artwork. So it seemed impossible that my art could ever compare! Or that I would ever be accepted, having never done a show before.

I have such huge gratitude to the Corvallis Fall Festival, and especially to its directors, for allowing me this opportunity! They helped me so much. It was truly a life-long goal of mine, and they were so supportive of me. As a young and aspiring artist, it is such a huge step to have had this experience and so I will always remain grateful. Thank you so much!!

I also have huge gratitude to my aunt Diane, who flew all the way from Minnesota out to Oregon to be my helper. She was really amazing support to me. She is by far one of my biggest fans, and has given me endless love and support over the years. I'd also like to thank my Master's advisor, who has always been so enthusiastic and supportive of my art. As well as all the friends who stopped by!

As this was my very first experience doing an art festival, I was quite nervous! Especially about setting up a booth! It takes a lot of work! And many weeks of preparation and fervid painting. Trying to figure out the panels, getting enough art produced, displaying it properly, setting up the tent... it all seemed so intimidating! But fortunately, it all came together. I was so pleased.

I had really hoped that I might sell a few paintings. Unfortunately, it was not to be, though I did sell some postcard packets highlighting my paintings. However, it was so amazing to hear the kind words and compliments that folks gave. It was quite surreal that I was in the place of those artists I've spent my life admiring!! That my work seemed to stand up! My favorite moments were when people would drift by, look up, and say "wow" or "look at that!" "beautiful!". I remember one woman stopping and exclaiming wow! Many people drifted by, or looked in. Not as many people came up to look closely at my paintings as I might have wished -- but a few did. And that is always one of the biggest compliments one can give me. Most of my life and childhood, I would go up to look closely at art, wondering how it was painting, inspired by it, enjoying the painting. A couple of kids and young people did this with my art! That made me very happy.

Another favorite moment was in the morning, just before the second day of the festival was about to start. An amazing watercolor artist, whose work I have admired both years I've visited the Fall Festival, came up to my booth and chatted with me, and complimented my work! He complimented my style, told me that it is very unique, and complimented the paintings. Wow! Wow! I was so thrilled!! It was so kind of him.

Although preparing for the Fall Festival and the festival weekend itself took a LOT of work and energy, I learned a lot. I learned how to perhaps better set up my booth in the future if I do other events, and got some lovely feedback from festival-goers and artists, as well as many kind friends who came to see my booth. I want to thank the Corvallis Fall Festival, and particularly its directors (especially its executive director and assistant director, who are both such fantastic people!!!). Thank you for taking a chance on me! I hope I get to do another art festival, or another art show, in the future!

I feel very fortunate to be featured in an article inthe September issue of the Forestry Source, a monthly newspaper through the Society of American Foresters (SAF). The piece is titled "Profile of a Scientist as an Artist," and I got the chance to talk about how I combine science and art. It was such a wonderful experience, and I am so thankful to SAF and to the Forestry Source. Please give it a read! You can view the online version here. Thank you so much!

Here's a peek of the front page, featuring one of my paintings!