Amelia Rhodeland in Hoover Wilderness. Photo by Ben Rhodeland.
Connecting people
and places
From the red rocks of Moab, Utah to the foggy green forests of western Oregon, from the vibrant streets of New Orleans to the sheer gray granite of the Sierra Nevada, I delight in exploring beautiful places and getting to know the people who love them.
For over a decade, I have been facilitating the access and exploration of public spaces, with a pervasive focus on removing barriers to entry for historically underserved and traditionally marginalized communities.
Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Moab Utah, by Amelia Rhodeland
Approach
A creative and driven innovator, I design and improve systems by building meaningful relationships while bringing a discerning eye to the status quo. My work process entails thoughtful design, careful consideration of strategy, frequent iterations, and an integrated practice of centering equity in every arena.
Equity + Environmental justice
I believe firmly in the importance of working towards equity and justice — a tall order in a society with a long history of exploitation, genocide, and violence towards Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Latinx, other people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, low-income communities and people experiencing homelessness, people struggling with their mental health, and other historically marginalized communities.
In my career and in my personal life, I consider the historical and sociopolitical context of my actions and how they serve to perpetuate or dismantle the current toxic status quo. Specifically, I draw upon theories of environmental justice developed by Dr. Robert Bullard, Dina Gilio-Whitaker, and other change-makers. Environmental racism is real, has shaped much of our society and continues to do so today.
Bio
Amelia Rhodeland at Montezuma Well National Monument. Photo by Elyscia Letterman.
Like all the best outdoor discoveries, Amelia stumbled upon her passion for natural spaces by accident. After spending her first 20+ years as an indoors-only kid in southern California — first a voracious bookworm in the Coachella Valley, then an Angeleno where she obtained her BA in Anthropology at UCLA — she abruptly decided to leave Los Angeles to live and work outside in Colorado on a trail crew. There, she learned how to set up a tent, hike uphill, and live off of trail mix for weeks on end. The peace and solitude of spending time in the outdoors was revelatory, and she embarked on a mission to introduce others to the experience.
Her subsequent work with the federal government and AmeriCorps includes working as a park ranger for the National Park Service in Arizona; creating publications for the Desolation Wilderness in California; coordinating events and volunteers at an environmental justice nonprofit in New Orleans; and managing visitor services for the USDA Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
Amelia Rhodeland in Mt. Jefferson Wilderness. Photo by Ben Rhodeland.
Amelia holds a Masters degree in Public Administration, awarded from the School of Planning, Public Policy & Management at the University of Oregon, where her exemplary performance earned her the Al Frazier Award for the top student in her cohort, as well as induction into the Pi Alpha Alpha public administration honors society. During her graduate studies, Amelia conducted applied research on intergovernmental collaboratives, designing a framework for an existing cross-jurisdictional hazard mitigation collaborative based on case studies and member input, and conducted additional applied research projects studying open data governance and regional winery tourism. She was also selected as a Hatfield Fellow through Portland State University’s Center for Public Service, during which she served as the Parks and Nature Community Engagement Specialist at Metro Regional Government, coordinating public programming and designing public involvement around a proposed regional trail project.
More recently, Amelia conducted applied research with the Institute for a Sustainable Environment’s Ecosystem Workforce Program at University of Oregon. There, she researched topics such as grant expenditures on federally managed lands, the 20-year impact of the Northwest Forest Plan, and the changing economies in rural towns. Her work culminated in a collaborative research project with social scientists from the US Forest Service, researching the demographic composition of the Forest Service workforce across a 20-year time span. Her contributions to this project included literature review, database management, and data analysis and visualizations.
Today, Amelia connects people to nature through strategic communications and social media management. In her current work at the Children & Nature Network, she creates content, writes and produces journalistic style articles, and manages editorial calendars for social media channels and email lists with a combined following of more than 300,000 followers and subscribers.
In her free time, Amelia enjoys traveling, growing and eating vegetables, creating Google Docs, picking up cats, and rock climbing.
All photos on this page by Amelia Rhodeland unless otherwise credited.