Liz has been working as a marine educator and naturalist for over ten years. An “aspiring generalist,” she has assisted with research on a wide range of projects, from kelp to humpback whales, songbirds to seals. She has worked as a kayak guide and as a marine mammal stranding responder. She loves connecting the threads of a place, weaving natural and cultural history, ecology and art.
Liz grew up exploring the shores and passages of Puget Sound and British Columbia. Upon graduation from college, wanting to see more of the Pacific Coast, she went to work for Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic as a deckhand, an experience that inspired her to become a naturalist. She began on the East Coast as a whale watch naturalist, and has gone on to work in Southeast Alaska, Baja California, the Canadian Arctic, the Amazon, and elsewhere.
Her deep commitment to place spills over into Liz’s life as a writer. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Approaching Ice (2010), which was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Interpretive Work (2008), which won the Audre Lorde Prize. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, her poems have been published in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Orion and numerous anthologies. When not working for Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic, she teaches, does field work, designs websites, explores, and writes.
