2024 Special Emphasis Series

Dr. Jon Atwood recently retired from his position as Director of Bird Conservation for Mass Audubon, where his work focused on grassland birds and full-life cycle conservation of Roseate and Least terns. He has been a practicing ornithologist and conservation biologist for more than 40 years, using behavioral studies of rare and endangered bird species to inform conservation planning.

After completing his master’s and doctoral degrees in southern California, where he studied Santa Cruz Island Scrub-Jay behavior, Least Tern breeding biology, and the taxonomy of gnatcatchers living in the deserts of North America, he moved to the East Coast in 1986. Building on his experience as a Master bird-bander, he worked at Manomet Bird Observatory and collaborated in the analysis of the first 30 years of Manomet’s land bird banding program. He also spearheaded federal protection of the California Gnatcatcher under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, led a long-term study of factors affecting Least Tern colony site selection, and contributed to early studies of Bicknell’s Thrush in New England.

Susan Paskvan, known as “K’etsoo” in Denaakk’e (Koyukon Athabascan) is the daughter of Benedict and Eliza Jones of Koyukuk, Alaska.  

She was the Native Language Coordinator of Yukon-Koyukuk School District, which serves ten Interior Alaska Schools. In this role, Susan taught Denaakk’e over two-way video-conference; developed the curriculum, lessons and materials; and coordinated professional development workshops for language speakers and educators. She believes there is no greater joy than watching a child having fun learning their language.

Throughout her fifteen years at Y-KSD Susan has worked with many elders, most often with her mother, Eliza Jones, to document Native place names throughout the Interior; genealogy; traditional memorial songs and stories. These hundreds of hours of recordings have led to an increase in the number of people who are able to sing their traditional songs at memorial potlatches. 

Widely recognized for her research in Alaska, Sarah Roeske brings more than 40 years of experience studying Alaskan geology and Cordilleran plate tectonics. First introduced to Alaskan geology as an undergraduate at Middlebury College, she did field studies on the Kodiak Islands for her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has conducted fieldwork from Sitka in southeast Alaska to the Brooks Range in the north, using everything from llamas to helicopters to access remote areas. As a research faculty member at University of California, Davis since 1990 she has enjoyed the chance to introduce numerous students to the Alaskan wilderness and the wonders and mysteries of geology.

Sarah’s research focuses principally on modern and ancient plate boundary faults and mountain-building processes, most recently focusing on the Alaska Range, which includes Denali, the highest peak in North America.

Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author and a cultural geographer. She is deeply interested in issues related to identity, difference, creativity, and resilience. Carolyn is grounded in both artistic and intellectual ways of knowing - she pursued an acting career for eleven years, but five years of backpacking trips through Africa and Asia, and living in Nepal changed the course of her life. Motivated by these experiences, Carolyn returned to school after a 15-year absence to complete a B.A., M.A. (gender and environmental issues in Kenya and Nepal) and a Ph.D. (where she was a Fulbright and a Canon National Science Scholar Fellow).

Along with public speaking, writing, media engagements, consulting & teaching, she served on the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board for eight years. Her first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors was released in 2014. Recent publications include Self-Evident: Reflections on the Invisibility of Black Bodies in Environmental Histories (BESIDE Magazine, Montreal Spring 2020), and The Perils of Being Black in Public: We are all Christian Cooper and George Floyd (The Guardian, June 3rd 2020). She is currently working on a performance piece about John Muir (The N Word: Nature Revisited) as part of a Mellon residency at the New York Botanical Gardens Humanities Institute this summer and is the new columnist at the Earth Island Journal. She is also an artist-in-residence in the Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College.

James Edward Mills is a freelance journalist who specializes in telling stories about outdoor recreation, environmental conservation, acts of charitable giving, and practices of sustainable living. He has worked in the outdoor industry since 1989 as a guide, outfitter, independent sales representative, writer, and photographer. He is the author of the new book The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoors and the co-writer/co-producer of the documentary film An American Ascent.

James has written for the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine, and
Wisconsin Trails. He is currently a contributor to several outdoor-focused print and online publications such as National Geographic Adventure, Rock & Ice, Alpinist, SUP, Elevation Outdoors, Women’s Adventure, the Clymb, Park Advocate, High Country News, Land & People, Outside Magazine and The Guardian.

Ben Rawlence wrote two books about the human consequences of environmental catastrophe in Africa: Radio Congo about the people living in the wreck-age of Eastern Congo’s resource wars and City of Thorns– about people fleeing famine and climate-driven war in the Horn of Africa.

After moving to Wales and beginning to research the coming impacts of climate change closer to home, his attention turned to the Arctic Circle and the boreal forest. What he discovered led to his third book: The Treeline and to a dawning realisation that we needed to prepare – and soon – for major changes to our ways of life. And to do that, we need new institutions that promote new ways of thinking and learning, new ways of seeing ourselves and new ways of interacting with the non-human world. Black Mountains College is committed to that task.

Dr. Nikoosh Carlo is Koyukon Athabascan and CEO of CNC North Consulting. Dr. Carlo guides clients to develop a vision for their climate change and Arctic priorities and build momentum to achieve their goals. She has worked across political divides for state senators, ambassadors, and governors on issues of Arctic governance. Her true passions are working with organizations that support climate change equity, and the well-being of Arctic residents and Indigenous peoples.

Dr. Carlo’s recent work focuses on driving transformative change in the finance sector to support Indigenous-led climate solutions in the Arctic and beyond. In April 2022, President Biden appointed Dr. Carlo to serve as an academic member on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, an independent federal agency that advises the president and Congress on domestic and international Arctic research. Dr. Carlo received a Ph.D. in neuroscience from University of California San Diego and a B.S. in psychology from University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Princess Daazhraii Johnson (she/her) is Neets'aii Gwich'in and lives with her three sons, daughter, and partner on lower Tanana Dene lands in Alaska. She is humbled to serve on the boards of Native Movement and NDN Collective, and the SAG-AFTRA Native American Committee since 2007.

In 2015 she was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a Sundance Film Alum, a Nia Tero Storytelling Fellow, and Illuminatives/Netflix Producers Program participant and is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter and former Creative Producer for Peabody award-winning PBS Kids series Molly of Denali.

Ronn & Marketa Murray are a husband and wife team, both in life and in business. They share a passion for many things, including photography, Northern Lights, nature, travel, and Angus, their wonderful Black Lab.

Ronn fell in love with photography in 2007 while working over the summer in California to pay his way through college. Later that year, he moved to Anchorage, Alaska, to follow his dream of becoming a professional photographer. It was then that he captured his first image of the Northern Lights and became entranced by their magic spell.

Marketa was born and raised in the Czech Republic. In 2002, she moved to Iceland and went on to manage TGI Fridays for several years. During that time she fell in love with the night sky, the Aurora, the beautiful Icelandic landscapes and photography. In 2011, she ventured to Alaska, where the two met and fell in love chasing the Aurora together. They were married a year later, beneath the majestic Aurora Borealis and have been “chasing the lights” together, ever since.

Ralph Clevenger holds degrees in both zoology and photography and was a senior faculty member at the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA for 33 years. He follows his passion for the natural world by specializing in photography and video projects of ecotravel, wildlife and the undersea world. Ralph has photographed assignments and led workshops around the world, and this will be his ninth trip to Camp Denali. He is the author of the book “Photographing Nature”, a sponsored ambassador for Light & Motion, and is represented by Tandem Stills & Motion.

Ralph’s publication credits include Audubon, Islands, Oceans, Outside, Orion Nature Quarterly, National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Nature’s Best, National Geographic Books, Smithsonian Books, Sierra Club Books, and many other national and international publications.

*additional fee applies to photography workshop participants