Lobbying with the NWF
As the philanthropy officer at SmartEvals, I was invited to Washington DC to speak to members of the house. Our goal was to get more supporters behind the Recovering Americas Wildlife Act. I spoke with congressmen Antonio Delgado and met Collin O'Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.
Self Expression and Leadership Program
The Self Expression and Leadership Program was one of the most influential experiences in my entire life. It was a 200-hour ordeal during high school while I was still on the swim team. Landmark was a program that was built on teaching people integrity (doing what you say you will, and doing things expected of you in the way they are meant to be done). It also taught communication skills, to deal with a lack of integrity. This program broke my fear of public speaking and is the reason I can touch, move and inspire my teams.
National Student Leadership Conference
National Student Leadership Conference was a program that taught business and leadership. Every day we were learning from sunrise to sundown; I learned more about business and leadership in the first two days than I did in school-led programs and classes. In leadership, the class and I learned about how to give an apology, different personality types, and different styles of leading. To me it all was important, but I saw that I needed to work on empathy much more after I understood what it was.
Working with the National Wildlife Federation
As Chief Philanthropy Officer at SmartEvals, I was charged with finding a suitable donation for the year. After several options, I decided to go to the NWF for a project in Idaho. The money donated allowed the NWF to purchase grazing rights at Seder Point 8 mile, Idaho.
Removing the ability for cattle grazing from this area means that the natural species have more food, on top of that there is less pollution.
In turn this allows current and future wildlife to thrive without the destruction and pollution of cattle grazing, most notably the Chinook salmon.
Geni-Act
Guiding Education through Novel Investigation Academic collaboration Toolkit (Geni-Act) is the current version of what initially was the Integrated Microbial Genomes Annotation Collaboration Toolkit (IMG-ACT). One of its goals is to allow high school students and their teachers to participate in scientific research that encourages them to consider entering into the STEM field. Our group studied the gene Kytococctus Sedentarius and presented with a poster presentation at the University of Buffalo to other students and UB professors.