Emma grew up in Sacramento, California where she gravitated to the outdoors from a young age. Bugs and creatures of any kind have always been her biggest fascination as she spent much of her childhood camping, hiking, and exploring all of the nooks and crannies of California. She had the opportunity to spend the summers in Lake Tahoe, where there was no shortage of wildlife to be inspired by and exploration to be done. 

While attending California State University, Chico, Emma had the chance to study in Athens, Greece and further grew her love for the gorgeous outdoors and spent most of her time in the waters of Eastern Europe. She holds a degree in Exercise Physiology and has a passion for the workings of the human body and what it’s capable of. This ties in wonderfully with her love for nature as it challenges her to spend lots of her time hiking, biking, running, fishing, climbing, and swimming. The more animal encounters within these activities, the better. 

Emma continues to be excited for all of the outdoor adventures to be had in Texas! Before joining the Earth Native team, Emma was a lifeguard for 8 summers, programmed summer camps, and was a Special Education teacher. Emma believes inspiring children to love learning and the outdoors is the most important work to be done. 

In her free time, you can find Emma out on the golf course, exploring new swimming areas, or in the kitchen trying out all kinds of recipes!

Wes is a Houston native and grew up hunting, fishing, and building forts in the piney forests of east Texas. His childhood backyard connected to tens of thousands of acres of wilderness in the San Jacinto River floodplain. Nearly all of Wes’s free time as a child all was spent outdoors where he built a lifelong bond with the natural world. Following this passion, Wesley left Texas for college in Florida, where he studied biology, geology, and archaeology.

Prior to joining Earth Native’s teaching team, Wes worked for a decade as a field archaeologist in the Everglades and across other areas of Florida, a position that felt like a “dream job” to a nature lover such as himself. Spending so much time studying how natural ecosystems connect to human life has given Wesley a deep understanding of human pre-history in North America, native plant communities and their relationships to soil types and topography, mapping and navigation in wilderness areas, and a chance to hone his wildlife tracking skill. Over the years, Wes’s love for the natural world has shaped his life in so many positive ways and one of his biggest passions is sharing his knowledge and experiences with the next generation of young naturalists.

Callie was born and raised in the east Texas Piney Woods. Her love of nature blossomed at an early age listening to the woods come alive in the morning with bird songs and squirrel chirps from her grandparents’ back porch. Callie’s childhood was divided between time spent in the woods with her brothers creating hideouts that felt like a whole different world, and the basketball court. 

Callie’s early childhood experiences outdoors inspired her to study Geography at the University of Texas where she majored in geography on the landscape ecology tract and minored in geography. 

In the early 2000’s, Callie discovered permaculture and began studying the practice through the Austin Permaculture Guild, eventually receiving her Permaculture Design Certificate. To this day she remains fascinated by the natural rhythm that Permaculture provides not only to agriculture but to permaculture communities themselves. Callie is continuously striving to live connected with the land in her off-grid home in Caldwell County. Her dream is to one day live in a Permaculture Paradise.

Ross is originally from Winona, Minnesota; land of the Dakota peoples. He grew up running around the hardwood forests overlooking the Mississippi River Valley. Since 2009 he’s been teaching folks of all ages all sorts of skills on how to feel comfortable and confident in the outdoors while imparting a value of stewardship of the land. Having taught in multiple states and organizations in the Northwest including; WA, OR, CA, AK, MT, and ID,  he is excited to be in the state of Texas on the Earth Native Team.

Ross has an abundance of skills he has cultivated over the years that he has a deep passion for teaching others. Those skills range from survival, hunting, tracking, bushcrafting, bird language, edible and medicinal plant ID and preparation, natural building, conservation work, and making tools like bows, arrows, and knives.

Ross believes wholeheartedly in the values of experiential learning in the natural world that Earth Native brings to its clients and the lands we operate on. Outside of work he can frequently be found getting distracted by birds in the woods, talking to anyone who will listen about knots, shooting archery, or crafting any number of things from natural materials that he finds on the landscape.

Emily grew up in small town Iowa. Enjoying the freedom small town life allowed to explore the local creek with her friends for hours on end without adult supervision, creating magical worlds and meeting fantastical creatures. She can connect her love for the outdoors all the way back to her Grandpa McGrady, who was a naturalist and knew all of the plants by name. She grew up telling him stories while sitting on his lap and hearing about his backpacking adventures. She was also lucky enough to spend regular time at a cabin built by her Great-Grandfather in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Here she thrived among the dirt, pine trees, and lakes filled with the melted mountain runoff each summer. This drew her to the forest.

When it became time for college she attended Whitworth University in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. While pursuing some extra classes for a minor in Biology, she discovered her favorite class was Botany. This again drew her back to the forest.

Fast forward several years and a move to Texas, Emily became a foster parent in Houston and eventually a preschool teacher and later the Education Director at a nonprofit preschool in Austin. Becoming a mother, she ultimately discovered the best place to be with her 3 young boys was outside. Involvement in Free Forest School in Austin, solidified her belief that a deep connection with nature was a core aspect of childhood. 

Finally, she discovered Earth Native Wilderness School. All 3 of her boys have attended classes and summer camps here. In 2020, she decided the most important thing to do was sign up for the Earth Native Survival Skills Intensive course for adults. Drawing her again back into the forest. Following the completion of a 5-day survival trip in East Texas she decided she must take Earth Native’s 8-month Track and Sign Intensive course. Emily is currently certified as a Track and Sign Professional through CyberTracker North America. After completing both of these courses she was inspired to join the teaching team at Earth Native and is continuously excited for the future, as she believes Earth Native school is the perfect union between her love for Mother Nature and teaching future generations in the forest that she so loves.

Eli was born and raised in Austin, TX. As an Austin native, his nature connection is firmly rooted in the landscapes of Texas that he spent so many hours exploring as a kid. At a young age Eli’s passion for the outdoors truly blossomed as he traveled across the many regions of Texas hunting with his dad and fishing the gulf coast. 

After high school Eli decided to expand his outdoor knowledge by pursuing an Environmental Science degree in Denver, Colorado. After living in Colorado for a few years, enjoying the Rockies, the pull of Texas and family drew him back to Austin. Before joining the team at Earth Native, he worked as a Park Specialist with LCRA. At LCRA he taught outdoor education classes on topics ranging from outdoor survival skills to skull morphology and led recreational experiences for adults and youth within LCRA parks and along the Colorado River. Through teaching, Eli’s passion for passing along the deep connections he has to Texas flora and fauna to the next generation has only grown stronger. 

Eli currently lives in South Austin where he pursues homesteading, with a goal of greater self sufficiency and sustainability, where he enjoys looking after his chickens and a miniature horse named Gaylin.

Lizzie grew up right outside of Houston, in Cypress, Texas. Her passion for nature and wildlife first began when she started working with horses. A love for hiking and camping soon followed. Lizzie grew up caring for livestock and earned a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture at Tarleton State University. While in college, Lizzie took her first Environmental Education position teaching children how to care for horses, fishing and kayaking. Later, Lizzie expanded her experience with animals through an internship at the Texas Zoo. After graduating college, she officially became a zookeeper, making her way to the Austin Zoo where she worked with a large variety of animals, from parrots to alligators, foxes, snakes, zebras and even wolves. Her favorite part of being a keeper was educating the public about the animals she cared for and connecting kids with the understanding of just how amazing and important nature can be.

Lizzie lives in Austin with her two cats, Draco and Luna. She enjoys travel, hiking, being outdoors, making new friendships, and going to Zilker Park.

Marcia's love of animals was immediate and undeniable. Born and raised in the San Juan Islands of Washington state, her first passion was for orcas. She spent hours sitting on boat decks carefully scanning the horizon for the subtle exhale clouds that indicated the orcas' presence. This is where Marcia honed the patient observation skills she'd need for identifying and interpreting wildlife tracks and sign.

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Marcia moved to Austin, Texas in 2009 and immediately got to work learning everything she could about the plants and animals that make Texas so diverse. She spent three years volunteer gardening at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. She received the first of her Permaculture Design Course Certifications in 2012 and completed an Advanced Permaculture Design course in 2014. She also became a certified Texas Master Naturalist in 2014, serving as president of the Lost Pines chapter from 2017 through 2019.

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As a Texas Master Naturalist, she began leading interpretive hikes at the local state parks. She found that her hikes typically revolved around the park wildlife and their tracks and sign. In an effort to learn more, Marcia took a weekend tracking workshop through Earth Native in 2017 and hasn't stopped tracking since.

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She has participated in Earth Native's Wildlife Tracking Intensive since 2017, both as a student and as a teacher's assistant. She also teaches Introduction to Wildlife Tracking and Bird Feather Identification. She is currently certified as a Track and Sign Specialist through the Cybertracker Conservation evaluation system, an international standard for gauging and enhancing in-field knowledge of wildlife behavior and track and sign identification. She is one of only 5 in Texas and 39th in North America to attain this level of certification.

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In her free time, she is a beekeeper, a chicken-wrangler, and a totally-within-reason-not-at-all-crazy cat lover. She dreams of one day using her tracking skills to observe and study mountain lion populations within Texas.

Nick was born in Austin but raised in many places. Since before he was old enough to remember, Nick developed a love for nature while spending weekends at a cabin in southeast Texas. In those early years Nick could always be found searching for bugs and snakes in fields seemingly claimed solely by huisache and caliche. Those explorations helped him fine tune his senses and be alert to the silent, small, and elusive creatures of nature. 

Nick moved to Kansas for several years as a child where he found a wonderful mentor in a science teacher and herpetologist who further encouraged his passion for snakes and reptiles. Nick’s mother played a huge role in supporting this interest by not only tolerating all the escaped creatures roaming the living room, but also would call on him in the yard to catch and relocate animals. Unfortunately sometimes Nick would relocate these creatures back into the house… To this day Nick’s mom still texts him pictures of every snake she comes across. 

Even deeper connections with nature developed on childhood camping and road trips Nick took with his dad, listening to Kerouac on the way, and writing poems to the stars and mountains and desert sands of the Southwest. This deeply seeded sense of adventure and wonderment led Nick to exploring the natural world across many countries in his later years, often finding himself wandering the forests of Japan, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and central Europe. Most recently returning home to Austin after living in Germany, where his love for new nature grew as deep as the mycelium of the dinner he learned to forage. 

Second only to his personal love for nature, is his passion for sharing experience. Before joining the team at Earth Native, Nick spent 20 years working with youth as an educator, tour guide, entertainer, mental health specialist, sports instructor and competition level professional coach. The continuous thread throughout has always been a passion for community and wilderness as a foundation for growth.

Hannah was born and raised on the crystal clear headwaters of the Guadalupe, deep in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. From an early age her dad taught her how to ID wildlife, forage, catch snakes, and read the stars. She spent many summer evenings swimming in the river with her brother and sister, and flipping over rocks to find critters. These intimate encounters with the natural world led to a deep love for the ecosystem we are all a part of.

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Hannah brought her love for the natural world with her when she studied Art Education at UNT, incorporating ecological themes into her body of work, and later when she took a three year break from art school, traveling and learning about sustainable agriculture.

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Her travels brought her to intentional communities in the piney woods of Pennsylvania, the rolling prairies of the Midwest, and the open skies of the Southwest deserts. Hannah continued her agricultural education as a farm intern on Shaw Island in the Pacific Northwest.

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While living and teaching in Mexico, Hannah fell in love with permaculture, and the concept of incorporating more native species into her agricultural practice. She learned traditional native farming techniques from experienced women in the rural village of Hostotipaquillo, Jalisco. The link between sustainable agriculture and native foraging was a big game changer for Hannah!

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Her time spent in Mexico working with kids inspired her to return to school to finish her degree. After graduating she worked as an Outdoor Education Instructor at Mo Ranch. She especially loved teaching native botany, freshwater ecology, gardening, and sustainability.

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She also spent several years teaching fourth grade at a Nature Based Charter School in Austin, where she loved hiking with her kids in the woods and teaching Math through the lens of Texas Animals statistics.

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Hannah is so happy to have returned to her roots as an Earth Native Instructor in her Central Texas homeland. There are few things she loves more than working with kids, playing in the woods, and inviting others to be curious about the beautiful world around us.

Michelle grew up on the outskirts of Houston, Texas, where the suburbs of a big city left little room for nature. Still, her innate curiosity for wildlife, nature, and the world never wavered. In her free time, she would spend hours exploring her own backyard, digging up dirt to make clay bowls, and watching the tadpoles slowly metamorphosize day after day in the pond. Her fascination grew and grew, and she decided to explore the world even further by pouring herself into National Geographics, learning about every animal fact she could from wildlife books, and "traveling" across the globe from oceans and deserts to mountains and valleys through nature documentaries on Animal Planet.

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As she grew older, Michelle discovered a deep passion for working with children. Volunteering every summer at CAMP Camp, a summer camp for kids with special needs, fueled her love for education and childhood development, inspiring her to earn a degree in Early Childhood Special Education from Texas Christian University.

After college, she embarked on a big adventure: moving to Madrid, Spain to teach at a bilingual STEM primary school. It was a life-changing experience that shaped her as a teacher, a life-long learner, and human in this world. During the weekdays, she honed in on her teaching skills, focused on creating an immersive, engaging, and loving learning environment for her students. While on the weekends, she spent her time exploring the world like she always dreamed of as a kid; traveling to new countries, making new friends, reconnecting to nature through wild adventures, and maintaining her child-like wonder and curiosity for it all every step of the way. 

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Upon returning to Texas, Michelle was determined to build a fulfilling life rooted in her passions for education, exploration, nature, music, and meaningful connection. Through many twists and turns, her journey led her here to Earth Native, where she found the perfect place to combine her passions and serve her students, community, and the world around her.

David Croft is a native of the Texas Hill Country and grew up as a “free-range child” with outdoor experience in all parts of Texas.  He has interests and experience in Primitive Technologies, SCUBA diving, caving, sailing, flying and wildland studies of all kinds.  

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In his early college career he studied psychology/geology at the University of Texas and was active in sub-marine and submarine research both with the UT system and the Department of the Interior.  After several years of developing his carpentry skills into a design and construction business, his latent interest in medicine and emergency response led him to become a certified EMT with special skills.  From there he took on firefighting, EMS response and ultimately full time work at the Seton system first as an Emergency Room Technician then as Operations Manager for Seton’s Emergency Services.  During that period he finished a pre-med degree and assumed much of the responsibility for Seton’s disaster response including response to Hazardous Materials Incidents in the region.  He also represented the Seton System at the region’s Interagency Disaster Council.  

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David then returned to school full time to complete a degree in Environmental Management with a focus on Natural Hazards.  As an intern at the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, he worked to develop and evaluate emergency response/notification strategies for HAZMAT incidents that threaten water quality in the district.

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After graduation, he was recruited by the City of Austin Office of Emergency Management to write the healthcare response plans for Austin/Travis County and then by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to help design and implement a Facility Management Information System.  David then joined the City of Austin's Wildland Conservation Division helping to care for and manage the City's preserve lands.  

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David became a Master Naturalist in 2004 and has volunteered in various capacities including teaching primitive technologies for the Capital Area Master Naturalists, Westcave Preserve, the Native Prairie Association of Texas, Scouting and YMCA.  He is the Emergency Operations Coordinator for El Ranchito Summer Camp and enjoys teaching “Primitive Technologies”, “Natural Hazards of Texas”, “First Aid off the Grid” and other topics.

Morgan, a Chattanooga native, has always been deeply connected to the natural world. Her childhood was marked by adventurous explorations of local caves in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which inspired a lifelong passion for nature. Currently pursuing a degree in Applied Arts and Sciences at Texas State University, Morgan combines her love for the environment with her dedication to education. After moving to Austin in 2019, Morgan found a love for outdoor education, first teaching at a local private school and then at McKinney Roughs Nature Park before settling down at Earth Native.

Her diverse outdoor education roles have nurtured her love of nature and her passion as a teacher of young children, guiding them to better understand and appreciate the natural world. Morgan's commitment to blending her enthusiasm for the outdoors with her teaching career gives her fuel everyday.

When Morgan is not spending time with kiddos at Earth Native, she is usually out on Lady Bird Lake on her kayak, barbecuing by the pool, having fun exploring Bull Creek with her puppies, Rosemary and Violet or on the road collecting more National Park stickers.

Andrew grew up exploring the parks and creeks of South Austin, where a love for nature began to take root. A brief stint along the San Marcos River in seventh grade sparked his passion for birding, and stories of his grandfather’s tropical fish hatchery deepened his interest in wildlife. These early experiences led him to study Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University. 

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After college, Andrew began his teaching journey at a field trip destination serving Catholic schools in the Houston area. He soon returned to Austin, where he spent the next 13 years teaching science to students from elementary through high school—always looking for ways to bring his lessons outdoors. In 2018, he joined the Texas Master Naturalist program, further fueling his connection to the natural world.

In 2022, Andrew stepped out of the classroom to coordinate volunteer programs on Austin’s preserves, then moved into a role with the Texas Wildlife Association, bringing hands-on natural resource education to schools across Central Texas.

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Outside of work, Andrew leads native plant walks, supports Master Naturalist trainings, and helps organize programming for a local water conservancy. His path has taken many forms, but one thread ties it all together: a passion for helping people connect with nature. He’s thrilled to be back working outdoors with youth, sharing the wonders of the wild world around us.

Mark spent his childhood in rural England, and from an early age was obsessed with the natural world. He has fond memories of pond dipping for newts, looking for badgers with his Dad, and horrifying his Aunt by pulling apart owl pellets in her kitchen sink. Gifted with a degree of freedom that may seem surprising today, he and his friends spent every available moment playing in the local woods and fields. Somewhere back in the 1980s he discovered a book on outdoor survival skills and started to get more serious about his outdoor pursuits through the Scout Association, and Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Schemes. 

Following degrees in the biological sciences, Mark moved to the US to pursue a scientific research career. The move was transformative, and when he wasn’t working, he was backpacking and birding around his new home in North Carolina, canoeing the local lake, or crawling around the local parking lots looking at all the cool new bugs. Following a later move to Maryland he discovered the Ancestral Knowledge School where he fulfilled a childhood dream by successfully making his first friction fire. It was here he began formally training in ancestral/ survival skills.

Mark moved to Texas in 2012 and is now a certified Texas Master Naturalist, and the President of his local Audubon Chapter. Shortly after arriving in Texas Mark started working his way through the catalog of classes on offer at Earth Native. He developed a passion for animal tracking after taking an intro class in 2020 and has been involved with Earth Native’s Tracking Intensive ever since. This journey has taken him from student to instructor, and from tracking roe deer and hedgehogs in the UK, to mountain lion and wolves in the USA. He holds a Level III Track and Sign certification with CyberTracker North America and is currently working towards Professional and Specialist Certifications! 

Ashley is a native Houstonian where she grew up barefooted—more often than not, gardening with her grandmother, climbing trees, shark tooth hunting in the Galveston Bay, and rock hunting in the Comal River. She spent the duration of her young-adult years exploring the vast acres of Colorado public lands. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in painting from Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design in Denver, Colorado. Her interdisciplinary non-traditional approach to art making is rooted in conscious curiosity and purposeful play, advocating for earth connection and ecological health. She regards herself as a daughter and student of the earth, ever learning from the cycles of nature. 

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Ashley is a certified community herbalist, learning from her lineage of teachers and practicing The Irish Wisdom Tradition. She is immensely interested in ancestral knowledge and particularly drawn to the field of ethnobotany. Her love for wildcrafting originated in the High Plains region which she left behind to reclaim roots in her home state. 

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Before joining Earth Native Ashley spent three years working as a regenerative farmer and an internship supervisor, mentoring and educating young farmers on the significance of community food systems. She received her Master of Environmental Management degree with an emphasis on sustainable and resilient communities from Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado. Her masters work focused on permaculture, natural building, and passive solar greenhouse design. Looking ahead, she intends to continue to hone her permaculture skills, gradually invigorating her endeavor to steward land and community with authenticity.

Eric is a born and raised Austinite and naturalist. As a kid, his summers were filled with trips to Enchanted Rock, Hamilton's Pool, and all the other natural wonders of central Texas. Eric was one of Earth Native’s first students back in 2011. He then became an instructor at both Earth Native and the Austin Nature & Science Center. During the past few years, Eric has been working as an engineer in the renewable energy and environmental consulting fields, but he always takes time to reconnect with the natural world and teach people about plants. He is especially interested in edible and medicinal plants and has led numerous plant walks. He enjoys traveling and exploring nature with his wife, Stacy. Eric and Stacy co-founded a yaupon tea business called Local Leaf; they sustainably wild-harvest yaupon from Earth Native School's land to create a bottled yaupon maté drink as well as powdered yaupon matcha. They also co-authored Foraging Texas: Finding, Identifying, and Preparing Edible Wild Foods.