Sarah Gilman enters the stage tomorrow as a New Person of LWON. I’m pleased to usher her onto the page after having been on the same team trekking across an Alaskan icefield, jammed in a tent during a white out. We survived without going at each other with ice axes. That’s a good thing.
Gilman double majored in studio art and biology. The former still has her doodling, watercoloring, weaving and sewing in her spare time. The latter involved studying parasite-mediated sexual selection among white crowned sparrows at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in central Colorado. She toted a giant microphone into the woods by mountain bike everyday at 4 or 5 a.m. This is where she learned how much she loves fieldwork and how much she hates what she calls “the scientific publishing ratrace and the obtuse, unreadable format of scientific papers.” After eight years working as a journalist and editor for High Country News in Colorado, she’s landed in Portland, OR. Welcome her into the fold. Wonderful things to come.
Welcome, Sarah! As the great Glenn Frey once said, “You can check out, but you can never leave.”