After earning my MES degree in 1993, I moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where I completed a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Kentucky in 1999. My dissertation research in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains was published in 2004 in a book titled “In the Land of Orpheus: Rural Livelihoods and Nature Conservation in Postsocialist Bulgaria.” From 2000 to 2002, I had a post-doctoral fellowship with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, during which I did a research project about forest restitutions again in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains as part of a larger team working on property relations in postsocialist Eurasia. Since fall 2002 I have worked as a cultural anthropologist and subsistence specialist for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

When not working, I enjoy the adventures that Alaska has to offer, whether hiking, biking, cross country skiing, gardening, and volunteering for a local sled dog race. I also enjoy harvesting, processing and eating wild foods, especially Copper River salmon, and am known for frequently winning local wild food cook-offs. As I did while in the MES program, I bike to work nearly year-round. Recently I’ve also been participating in a citizen science river ice monitoring program called Fresh Eyes on Ice.