Wendee Nicole, M.S., Ph.D. candidate
Writer, Photographer, Scientist, Educator, Bohemian, Mover-n-Shaker

Wendee can tromp around swamps in rubber waders catching frogs, snakes or gators by day, and dress up to lead a seminar or teach a course at night. She likens herself to the bohemians of the early 20th century, intellectuals who loved art, had high ambitions, and who could live in squalor or luxury. Her father nicknamed her "urchin," and she was quite at home in his backwoods Oregon log cabin with no running water, an outhouse, and wood stoves for cooking and for heat. Later she moved around the country with her mother and stepdad in suburbia, and the two opposing lifestyles gave her a unique perspective.

Wendee has a vivid writing style borne of her grassroots childhood and her inherent love of wild places and wild things. She brings more than 20 years of writing experience to the table, with articles published in nationally acclaimed magazines and websites including Scientific American, Nature, National Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife, Ensia, and Audubon Magazines, Discovery Channel Online, AnimalPlanet.com and NPRs All Things Considered. She regularly contributes to Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine and has been featured in their special Annual Water Issue for several years alongside some of Texas's best writers. In 2013, she won 1st place American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) 1st place award for her Pacific Standard Magazine article Was Lou Gehrig's ALS Caused by Tap Water? Another career highlight was when Discovery Channel sent her to Costa Rica to cover leatherback turtle research for a live expedition published in real-time on the web in 1999 and then sent her to dive with sharks in Australia's Coral Sea in 2008. She has been a regular contributor to Environmental Health Perspectives (the publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences - NIEHS) for more than a decade and was a contributing writer for Defenders of Wildlife Magazine before it folded.

Wendee founded San Jacinto Conservation Coalition in 2000, a group dedicated to smart growth and habitat conservation. She planned, and implemented the highly successful River Bottom Festival at Lake Houston State Park, held in conjunction with the East Fork/West Fork Canoe Challenge. SJCC and Legacy Land Trust nominated the San Jacinto as an American Rivers "Most Endangered River" for 2006. The organization was active for a decade before Wendee went back to work on her doctorate and her attention turned elsewhere.

She founded Redemption Song Foundation in 2014 after receiving a $20,000 Special Reporting Initiative Grant from Mongabay.org to write about mountain gorillas and the Batwa people in Uganda. She was so moved by the plight of the Batwa, later that year, she sold her home and moved near Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, the ancestral land of the Batwa and started the nonprofit with a friend and colleague, Ben Ssenkeera, now a veterinarian. After living and running the organization in the country three years, she adopted a sweet 10-year old orphan, a member of the tribe, and they moved to the U.S. Her daughter, Joyce Orishaba, is now studying at Stanford University.

Scientific Expertise
Wendee earned a B.S. Magna Cum Laude and M.S. in Wildlife Ecology from Texas A&M. Her Master's research on the impacts of fire ants on native fauna was published in the journal Ecology. In 2001 she begun work toward her Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University and was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. She advanced to Ph.D. candidacy in November 2004, and received her M.A. in Evolutionary Biology from the university in 2005 before going on a leave of absence. Wendee has years of field work experience; she spent months trapping small mammals in the rainforests of Australia, the deserts of Nevada, and the post oak savannah of Texas. She also has experience with radio telemetry, pitfall trapping of reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, and vegetation sampling, and working with nesting sea turtles.

Education and Teaching Expertise
Wendee is a charismatic teacher who loves spreading enthusiasm and knowledge about science, nature, and writing. She taught Animal Ecology lab at Texas A&M in 1993, showing students how to conduct a semester-long field research experiment, which meant catching small mammals (a nice name for rats) in the wee morning hours. She showed students how to plan the experiment, conduct the field work, and analyze the data using computer models and statistics. After she moved to Houston she taught biology at Kingwood College for 4 years including lecture, lab and internet courses. She developed the web content for the North Harris Montgomery Community College District (NHMCCD) Biology Online Course, and developed field excursions for her students above and beyond what the college required. She led students on a semester-long water quality monitoring study for two semesters, took students kayaking, and led them on natural-history hikes in the Big Thicket National Preserve. After participating in a 2-year Information Technology in Science (ITS) program at Texas A&M's Center for Teaching and Learning from 2000-2001, she developed an interactive Evolution in Action grizzly bear animal behavior module, designed to teach students how to think critically while learning about a core curriculum: evolution.

Wendee also has taught Nature Writing e-courses for Freelance Success Institute, authored the Morris College of Journalism's course material on nature journalism, and was highlighted in the 2001 Writer's Market for the Insider Report on Writing for Nature, Conservation, and Ecology Markets. She now teaches an online magazine writing class through her business, LOGOS Communications LLC.

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www.wendeenicole.com
Copyright © Wendee Nicole

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

... Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Wendee's Humorous Bio]