People

NAAEE’s Senior Director of Capacity Building, Sarah Bodor comes from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, where she held a number of program management and leadership positions throughout the organization. She worked closely with state education agencies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to develop and pilot standards-based curricula and provide teacher professional development. Her background also includes communications and fundraising. In 2008, she served as the writer of Maryland’s Children in Nature Plan, which resulted in passage of Maryland’s environmental high school graduation requirement.

Madeline is an international programs specialist at NAAEE, supporting the Global Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP), youth leadership programs, and other global initiatives.

I am an educator and the Executive Director of the Maine Environmental Education Association. I am a cofounder of the Maine Environmental Changemakers Network and serve as a member of the NAAEE Affiliate Advisory.

Drew is an organizational and logistics specialist. He has expertise in creating and implementing systems to ensure program success and federal regulation compliance, including budget management, reporting, and program activity coordination. Drew started working for NAAEE in 2012. Prior to that, he worked for ChemStewards, an environmental, health, and safety program, and as a Sustainability Assistant for the City of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, focusing on data management as well as community engagement. He has a bachelor's degree in Political Science, with a minor in biology, from the University of South Dakota.

I am an Assistant Professor of Environmental Education in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. I work collaboratively with educators and youth on design-based research to understand and develop pathways for people to learn about and care for the natural world we are all a part of. I focus on urban communities and explore questions of environmental identity, environmental literacy about complex ecological issues, and the structure and function of learning ecosystems.

I am a nature-based educator, advocating for the right of every child, from preschool through high school - and the grownups who guide them - to have meaningful experiences learning in, about, and with nature.

Sydney spent the bulk of her childhood learning and growing under the canopy of the southeastern deciduous forests that make up her home state of Virginia. She earned her B.A. in International Studies with a minor in Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Following her undergraduate schooling, she began working as a youth environmental educator, leading her to eventually pursue her M.A. in the University of Utah's Environmental Humanities Program to study how nature-based programs can better support nature-connections across diverse groups. While in Utah, she also co-founded Camping in Color, an overnight program designed for black youth and their families in the Salt Lake Valley area to enhance a sense of belonging, appreciation, and engagement in the outdoors. She joins the Natural Start Alliance team excited to further her work in making quality early childhood environmental education more accessible to all.

Coordinates Nebraska Forest Service Conservation Education programs, including the growth and maintenance of Nebraska Project Learning Tree and Nebraska Project WET. Manages a wide network of volunteer facilitators, Leads environmental education programming for adults, youth and family audiences.