Nick is currently an environmental policy graduate student at the University of Montana, where he is a Kendeda Fellow and was recently named a Wyss Scholar for 2020.
His research focuses on the use of policy to mitigate future habitat fragmentation and reestablish connectivity through wildlife corridors and crossings while factoring in the human and institutional considerations affecting such policy. He credits growing up in Los Angeles for fostering his love for public lands and his desire to protect our natural world as he had access from an early age to the ocean, deserts, mountains, and forests. Currently, Nick is interning at the National Wildlife Federation, working for their Artemis and Public Lands programs. With Artemis, he is helping to develop and implement campaigns to empower women hunters and anglers to become leaders in conservation. For the Public Lands program, he is researching each state’s rules and regulations regarding the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle and creating a national database to facilitate a Lead-Free Landscapes campaign. This summer, he is working at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) in Bozeman, Montana, where he will assist their Corridors and Crossings program. His work for CLLC will involve creating case studies of established corridors and crossings and the initiatives, laws, and programs that facilitated their designation and/or construction. The work will also include taking a close look at the advocacy process, the policy, and enactment and funding of said policy on the federal, state, county, and municipal levels. In his free time, Nick enjoys fly fishing on Montana’s numerous Blue Ribbon trout rivers.