Maddie is an environmental writer with a particular interest in the history of human relationships with water. They recently became the second known person to circumnavigate Great Salt Lake and are working on a writing project about the journey. Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, they consider their relationship to land to be more dramatically shaped by the summers they spent visiting family in small-town northern Idaho as a child. After spending a decade in China and South Africa, where they completed their undergraduate studies in anthropology, the pandemic accidentally brought them back to the American West, where thru-hiking and leading high school and college outdoor and experiential education programs across the Four Corners allowed them to reconnect with their home country. They continued to explore these new questions of identity and relationship to land with an MS in environmental humanities from the University of Utah. Though their professional, academic, and personal interests are generally one and the same, their hobbies also involve scuba diving, long train rides, and remarking on the day-to-day activities of their cat, Beetle.