Kala Wolfe, MEM '09

I am a second year MEM student in the Ecosystem Science and Conservation concentration, and my interests include sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation. Currently I am doing my summer internship with a non-profit conservation group in El Salvador called SalvaNATURA. My work with SalvaNATURA is focused on the monitoring of bird population changes in different habitats, including a coffee plantation, with data collected over a 5 year period in El Salvador.

I grew up in extremely rural Pennsylvania where I gained my appreciation for wildlife. My undergraduate degree is in ecology from Penn State Erie. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do independent research on avian breeding biology during my time at Penn State, which allowed me to work at field stations in Alaska, Ontario, and to supervise the field station where we studied black-capped chickadees at my college campus. Combining my experience with bird research and conservation has brought me to El Salvador where I am working for a non-profit and developing my master’s project.