As a child, Dana learned to love nature in the hills of Rowe, Massachusetts guided by her grandmother and parents. This passion carried over to working on a number of field projects including the Kalahari Meerkat Project and Team Marmot at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, before focusing on community involvement in science.
Before joining VCE, Dana worked as the Programs Director for Williamstown Rural Lands, a small land trust in Massachusetts, where she ran programs to connect people with their local environment including natural history walks, kids camps, field trips and more. She received her B.A. in Biology from Wellesley College in 2014 and her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from UCLA in 2021. While she now lives in the Upper Valley she still maintains connections to home serving as a Trustee for the Rowe Historical Society – a position she took over from her grandmother. When not meeting up with community members, she can be found investigating local New England history, hitting the xc ski trails or out looking for cool ferns.
