A Short Questionnaire with Alana Rader
What is your environmental experience?
I’ve been immersed in the biophysical environment, both recreationally and through stewardship, my entire life. Growing up in Boise, Idaho, I spent nearly every weekend camping, hiking, rafting, and skiing while also volunteering in restoration and environmental NGOs that worked in our local Idaho foothills. Beyond my youth, I immersed myself in concepts and theories of the environment during my undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, all in Geography.
Specifically, I became passionate about coastal landscapes and began examining the complex relationship between biophysical processes, landforms, and policy that define a landscape as a ‘coast’. Since then, my research and work has focused on processes of coastal landscape regeneration.
I have been lucky to study coastal regeneration in diverse environments across the Americas, including coastal beach-dune recovery following vegetation restoration in both northern California and British Columbia, coastal erosion mitigation strategies in New York State, and coastal forest regeneration after hurricanes in southeastern Mexico.
As a new Assistant Professor at California State University Northridge, as well as a new community member in Los Angeles, I look forward to applying my research focus and lifelong passion for the environment to our coastal landscapes in Southern California!
Why you were interested in CIR?
Southern California’s coastal landscapes, and in particular the Channel Islands, provide incredible ecological resources to our ecological and human communities. Channel Islands Restoration has been central to protecting, restoring, and supporting these important landscapes and resources in the face of compounding global pressures such as climate change and development.
While this objective is central to my research, even more important is that CIR’s approach to stewardship as well as community engagement in the environment is aligned with my personal values. I know firsthand from my youth the opportunities that being involved in restoration, environmental service work, and a community of environmentalists can provide.
I look forward to working alongside community members and CIR volunteers in supporting, restoring, and understanding our beautiful Southern California environments into the future!