Education

MA, Appalachian State University
BA, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Common Courses Taught

North Carolina Enviromental Education Certification Preperation

Scholarly and Professional Achievements

Julie has worked in the field of environmental education since 1990, including a year as the staff educator for the lobbying arm of the NC Wildlife Federation, nine seasons as an interpretive park ranger on the Blue Ridge Parkway (National Park Service), two seasons as an outreach ranger for W. Kerr Scott Reservoir (US Army Corps of Engineers) , two seasons as a naturalist and environmental educator at Grandfather Mountain (Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation), and a season as an interpretive forest ranger at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center for Tongass National Forest in Juneau, Alaska (US Forest Service). After a 20-year career at Wilkes Community College where she taught English composition, American literature, and humanities courses including Southern and Appalachian Culture and served as department chair and Global Education Director, she returned to the field of environmental education. She currently works again as a seasonal interpretive ranger on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Doughton Park to the north of Watauga County. She currently teaches ORM 345—NC Environmental Education Certification Prep for the Outdoor Recreation Management Department at Lees-McRae and two sections of First Year Seminar called Parkway Voices at Appalachian State University. From May through November, she works as an interpretive park ranger in Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Julie earned her MA from AppState in English: Post-Secondary Education and her BA in English from UNC-Charlotte. At both universities, she also took what interesting biology field courses she could fit in. While a graduate student at Appalachian, she co-taught a course for Watauga College called Nature and Identity. 

Personal Interests

Julie and her daughter Hattie (now 23) have backpacked over 500 miles of the Appalachian Trail, and are currently section-hiking parts of the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Julie often presents locally on fungi, wild plant uses and stories, and other natural world topics of interest. She also volunteers as a docent at Fort Defiance Historic Site. Her interests include foraging for edible and medicinal mushrooms and plants, hiking and backpacking, reading both fiction and natural science non-fiction, gardening, birding, and seeing the world from the perspectives of other people and other organisms.