Before joining Ecotrust Canada’s Climate Resilience team, Michelle led a climate solutions research program at the University of Northern BC, and was a forest carbon specialist with a First Nations advocacy organization. Her extensive experience included working with First Nations, local, provincial, and federal governments on land management, conservation policy, and tenure administration. Michelle also spent a decade as a field technician, collecting data on ecological recovery after fire, surveying insects and pollinators, and locating and observing the behaviour of an endangered mammal.
Michelle has an MSc in forest disturbance ecology. She loves primary forests and wildlife and spends her personal time doing public education on the importance of maintaining primary forests that have been affected by wildfire and insect disturbances. She grew up in central Alberta’s aspen parkland, among Surrey’s last old Douglas firs, and now lives to experience the wet spruce forests of Lheidli T’enneh territory (north-central British Columbia).