This extension has offered me the opportunity to not only continue supporting the projects that I had been working on over the past year, but also offers me the opportunity to hone-in on new goals, expand my skillsets, and continue building relationships with my NPS-RTCA co-workers and the project partners that I am working alongside. Reflecting on the first year of my fellowship, I find myself amazed at the wide array of projects that I worked on in terms of how different their objectives, settings, and challenges and opportunities were. I have helped to support projects like a Pacific Northwest community forest project, a management planning project in a remote area south of Lake Tahoe, a park and health-equity focused project in Washington State regarding how to best use the data from a park and playground observation pilot study, an urban forestry project in an Oregon community recovering from wildfire-induced tree canopy loss, and more.

In continuing to support other projects, work in first month of my fellowship extension has included tasks like starting to prepare a graphically-designed InDesign version of a project final report that I helped to write during the fall and winter, diving further into the world of GIS, and helping ramp-up community outreach and engagement planning in a community forest project. Additionally, one particularly exciting opportunity has been helping to support the planning of a River Management Society training occurring later in the spring around river access planning on a southwestern Oregon river.

Although many of the goals I have in mind for my extension overlap with the goals that I identified at the beginning of 2024, I look forward to focusing on broadening my mapping and project management skills, and continuing to network with RTCA staff and other people that I have been able to meet and work with through my fellowship. Looking ahead, I am also excited to be a part of the RTCA team through another round of applications to the technical assistance program during the springtime. I hope to be able to support RTCA staff in scoping potential projects, and continuing to harness this next application cycle as a learning opportunity in the world of technical assistance grants. 

Overall, I am looking forward to continuing to support RTCA staff in my work, and continue taking advantage of the immense learning opportunities that I have throughout this fellowship extension!