What’s your mission in academia?
On one hand, I am curious to study the world around me, and academia allows me to conduct research on topics of interest to the greater scientific community. On the other hand, I see teaching as a chance to excite students, open doors and encourage individuals to work toward their goals. As the first person in my family to go to college, I understand the importance of having a good mentor and adviser.

What’s in your job description?
I would describe myself as a broadly trained geographer with a specialty in biogeography and physical geography. My job entails teaching others about the wonders of geography, doing research in spectacularly beautiful and sometimes remote locations and serving the community here at NIU as the undergraduate adviser in the geography department.

How did you become interested in your subject area?
I was majoring in something other than geography, and it was required by that major to take an introduction to geography class. In doing so, I discovered my true passion. Within geography my subject area is biogeography. My interest in that area was sparked by a love of the outdoors and one fabulous teacher.

What do students learn from you?
My goal is for students to discover that when they are having fun learning it means they are taking the right courses! If you are interested in a subject it is inherently more interesting to learn. I find that many students discover geography is more then they ever thought it was, and they like it.
                             
What makes your class interesting?
Real-life examples. Whether they are stories or pictures, these examples allow students to come along on the journey. I like to take my students all over the United States, as well as to Central America, Europe, Australia, Africa, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Who knows where we will go next year?

What’s the best question you’ve ever been asked?
A student once asked me why I ruined his spring break. I was confused, and then he said he went to Florida with some friends for a beach vacation but couldn’t stop looking at landforms, beach erosion and coastal deposition features. My answer: It is my desire to ruin every student’s spring break in the same fashion!

What kinds of things do your graduates do?
Many work for environmental-consulting firms, or local governments and conservation districts. Some have gone on to graduate school.

What is your favorite aspect of your subject? Why?
I love traveling and seeing the world. I have not seen a landscape or vegetation community that didn’t amaze me in some way.

What most pleases you about society today? What most concerns you?
I am excited and energized by the general trend toward greater environmental responsibility in our society, but I am equally concerned by those who continue to act in a way that harms the world in which we all live.

What’s your current research?
My current research is focusing on the impact of climate change and pollution on sugar maples at their northern limit in North America. Specifically the research team I am a part of is busy setting up an experiment in Lake Superior Provincial Park, Canada, that will simulate projected future temperatures and precipitation patterns on sugar maple seedlings growing there. We have been working on sugar maples and other species in the deciduous/boreal forest ecotone since 1998. The work has been funded by National Geographic and currently by the National Science Foundation. I also have students working on projects here in Illinois examining the dynamics of oak/hickory woodlands and savannas.

What’s a good book you recently read?
“Easter Island” by Jennifer Vanderbes. The main character is a female biogeographer. It is set on Easter Island and could be described as a historical, scientific, love story. I don’t think easy reading comes any better than that.

Where do you go in DeKalb for a good meal?
My husband does all the cooking in our house, so for a good meal I go home. But when we go out, my family enjoys eating Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Italian … and we are waiting for a sushi restaurant.

Why did you choose your first college/university?
It was close to home. I was the first person in my family to go to college, so it was a BIG unknown.

Who was your favorite professor?
A professor at York University by the name of Dr. Martin Kellman (now retired). He is passionate about ecological biogeography, he is truly curious about the way plant communities function, he has very little patience for underachieving, and he sure can tell a great story.

Why should students come to NIU?
Northern is a great school to get an education. Undergraduate students have amazing opportunities to work with nationally and internationally recognized researchers here at NIU and our proximity to the Chicagoland area means access to internship and job possibilities.

What’s your best advice to students who want to succeed?
Find the subject area that they love and make that their major. Then read, study and don’t shy away from classes that require presentations. Talk to the professors and find out if they need help with their research—get your feet wet and your hands dirty.

If you weren’t teaching, what would you be doing?
Based upon the results from career guidance tests, I would be a military officer. Actually, at one point in my life, I came close to choosing that path.

What would your tombstone read?
She left a footprint on every continent, but a carbon footprint nowhere.

Photos by Jim Womack, NIU Media Services

Departments: Geography and Biological Sciences (joint appointment)

Hometown: I was born in England, but grew up in Toronto, Canada.

My degrees: Ph.D. in geography, University of Melbourne, Australia; master’s degree in geography, University of Colorado, Boulder; bachelor’s degree in geography, York University in Toronto, Canada.

Arrived at NIU: 1998

I teach: Mostly environmental science in the Geography Department, such as Survey of Physical Geography, Geography of World Plant Communities, Forest Ecology, and Plant Soil Relationships (GEOG/BIOS). I also teach a cross listed course, Women in Science (GEOG/BIOS/WOMS)