Born in rural Georgia, Kathleen received most of her early education from quiet moments in forests, sunrise canoe rides on a lake and books, lots of novels. A naturalist from Day Go, she has been writing essays, poetry, and newspaper articles about the outdoors since the re-birth of environmental activism in the early 1990s.

Educated at Elon University in North Carolina, Kathleen is a 2005 graduate of the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in newspapers. Her career as a journalist started at age 16 as an intern at her local weekly paper. Along the way, she’s thrown out questions to (and received answers from) the late Benezir Bhutto, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, as well as kids surviving cancer, Iraq war vets, middle school teachers, city council members, and local politicians.

Now in her first year at the Odum School of Ecology at UGA, Kathleen is pursuing a graduate degree in Conservation and Sustainable Development.