River Rally 2026

Personal story:
My work in river conservation started in 2005. I had a summer fellowship in a chemistry lab in Austria, and after I was done, I traveled all around the Balkans. I was absolutely mesmerized by the rivers I encountered and understood that many of them would be lost in the coming years to an onslaught of poorly planned hydropower development. After graduating, I returned to the region on a year-long Fulbright scholarship to study conservation biology of endangered native trout of the Balkans. That experience cemented my resolve to work on protecting rivers and conserving aquatic biodiversity. After finishing graduate school, I worked for a couple years as a field biologist / conservation coordinator for Trout Unlimited in the Great Basin. I then worked for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) based in Southern Nevada. While much of my work at TNC focused on energy, infrastructure and land use issues in the Desert Southwest, I was able to also initiate and launch TNC’s Southeast Europe Program, focused on renewable energy planning and securing permanent protections for rivers in the region. This program has grown to now have a full-time staff of ten and a country office in Croatia. To expand the efforts at river protection globally, I spearheaded and led the development of TNC’s Durable Freshwater Protection (DFP) Framework, which now forms the basis for the organization’s freshwater protection strategies around the world.

Education: BS in Chemistry, BA in Spanish from University of Montana. MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from Oxford University (UK).

Favorite River: This may be cheating, but I have four favorite rivers: Neretva River, Bosnia & Herzegovina; Soča River, Slovenia; Gunnison River, Colorado ; Amargosa River, Nevada/California

Favorite River Story: I once made a field expedition to Tajikistan to document the easternmost range of native Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) in the Amu Darya River Basin.  After several unsuccessful attempts to locate fish, and starting to wonder if the fish were extinct, we wandered into a village in a remote area.  A very hospitable old man along the river saw us and invited us in for tea at his house.  We attempted to communicate that we were there searching for trout, but we couldn’t bridge the language divide. After finishing tea, the man decided we should stay for a meal.  To show us what he was preparing, he brought out a tray, and on it were several native trout!  We were ecstatic and immediately began photographing the fish, which the man found amusing.  We produced a map, and through successful gesturing, asked him where to find these fish.  The man showed us a herder’s path to a remote section of river that was not on the map.  We went there and to our delight were able to document trout swimming in the stream.  This experience taught me that the map is not the terrain, and to never underestimate local knowledge.