Skills: Rangeland ecology and management, fire ecology, California plant identification, data management and analysis.
Fun Fact: Puts buffalo sauce on everything, is passionate about native plant horticulture, and loves tiny plants and fungi.
Zoë grew up in the South Bay Area, where much of her childhood was spent hiking and exploring the local regional parks with her mom. Having grown up in a wildland urban interface community, Zoë is interested in the impact of wildfire on California ecosystems and communities, and aims to both restore historical fire regimes to Bay Area landscapes as well as promote the equitable allocation of fire preparedness, management, and mitigation resources.
Zoë received degrees in Ecology and Psychology from UC Santa Barbara, where she completed an undergraduate thesis exploring how leaf traits can be used to predict fire severity in Southern California forests. Her passion for wildfire ecology and fondness for Bay Area grassland and oak woodland landscapes led her to pursue a master's degree in Rangeland Management at UC Berkeley, where her studies focused on rangeland plant ecology, wildfire and prescribed fire on rangelands, grazing management, and the ways in which people and the environment influence each other. Zoë looks forward to using her ecological knowledge and her passion for environmental justice in her work managing and utilizing fire with the RCD.
Skills: Environmental stewardship, relationship building, community composter & gardener, aspiring homesteader, native grasslands enthusiast, loves working with animals, grazing systems, tree hugger, watershed restoration steward.
Fun Fact: She grew up in Connecticut and although once partial to the Autumn season, understandably so having grown up surrounded by vibrant colors and foliage, has since made the East Bay her main home for the past 10 years, and has grown to appreciate every season, and the diversity of biomes present throughout California with vibrant colors of its own.
Genna comes to Contra Costa Resource Conservation District (CCRCD) as an early career professional who’s background in environmental sciences and food systems gives her a holistic lens in which to assist land managers across Contra Costa county. She recently completed serving in a Sustainable Agriculture & Water Technician role at Mendocino County Resource Conservation District through a UC-Berkeley AmeriCorps program called GrizzlyCorps, and also worked on rangeland carbon monitoring with Point Blue Conservation Science based in Petaluma, CA and Quivira Coalition based in Santa Fe, NM, where she partnered with farmers & ranchers across the continental Southwest. With CCRCD’s growing Agriculture team, Genna is the point person working on livestock and rangeland conservation projects including the Voluntary Local Program to restore habitats and protect the state threatened California Tiger Salamander and Alameda Whipsnake and federally threatened California Red-Legged Frog, and many additional rangeland management projects.
