By Emily Matchar
In 2015, Emily DeaKyne was a recent college graduate with a degree in applied ecology, environmental and plant biology who loved working with plants. So the job with the Bureau of Land Management seemed ideal. They gave her a truck, a list of plants, and a fold-out topo map, and sent her to drive around rural Wyoming, collecting seeds to be used for native plant seedings. The landscape was gorgeous, she says, but many days she wouldn’t see a single other person.
“That’s kind of when I realized I was a little more of a people person than the Bureau of Land Management could provide for,” she says. “I love plants, but I also like the human element.”
So DeaKyne returned to school, earning a master’s in natural resources management from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Through her research, she became familiar with the work of Linda Prokopy, then a professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue.
Source : purdue.edu