Green Mountain Audubon Welcomes Three New Board Members
by Lucie Lehmann
GMAS welcomed three accomplished new board members at its January meeting, filling vacancies left by the retirement of several long-term board members. The two women and one man represent a diversity of backgrounds and ages, and they are already hard at work attending outings and serving on committees.
Adam Weiss, a longtime biology teacher at Essex High School, retired in June of 2021. He lives on the Richmond/Williston border with his wife and three daughters, all of them outdoor enthusiasts who have spent many happy days on the Audubon property in Huntington. It was there that Adam first encountered what he considers his spark bird, a Mourning Warbler.
As are the other two, Adam is motivated by a strong desire to give back to the community in a different way, now that he has more time. In Adam’s role as the new Chair of the Grants and Scholarship Committee, the self-described team player who tries to find joy in everything he does has already reached out to former colleagues to let them know of the availability of grant funding to support environmentally-oriented projects. “What appeals to me about [that role] is channeling financial support to people and projects that are helping to capture a conservation ethic in young people,” he says enthusiastically.
This is Adam’s first time serving on a board, and he wants “to be part of a team that realizes in a practical sense [a continuation] of our already strong environmentalism in Vermont; a sense of working together. I want to help our local community take advantage of how their interests align with ours at GMAS.”
Dr. Ingrid Barcelo, a native of Girona, Spain, is married to a native Vermonter and has lived here since shortly after completing her PhD at the University of Nebraska in 2013. She is an ornithologist by training, did research on Sandhill Cranes in the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico, and taught ornithology at UVM for two years before moving into an administrative role there. Now, as a grant proposal developer, she uses her research background to assist faculty members in writing, editing, and reviewing their grant proposals, a job that she loves.
Now that her two children are a little older, joining the GMAS board gives Ingrid a chance to do something for her adopted home state and return to birding. “The big picture for me is to give back in some fashion to Vermont. I want to contribute in some way, and this is a specific opportunity, if I can help bring birds closer to more people, to make them more accessible to families who have never even considered taking their kids birding,” she says. She responded to an appeal by GMAS for new board members, especially those interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion, in part because her own experiences on Audubon outings highlighted what seemed to her a lack of younger people and women, especially Hispanic women, on those outings.
Ingrid wants to make birding welcoming to all. “I want people to feel less intimidated. They may not be experts or birders, but that’s ok; you can still come and enjoy,” she explains, noting that she herself is still learning to bird by ear in Vermont. The birds here are very different than those she grew up with in Spain, including her spark bird, the Eurasian Hoopoe, which she first noticed, not at home, but while she was working in the Middle East. Ingrid serves on GMAS’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, where she intends to create family-friendly outings for children and non-traditional birders, including in the immigrant community.
Emily Anderson, an Addison County native, grew up next to the Hurd Grassland, attended college in Maine, earned a B.S. in Ecology and Environmental Science, and returned to Vermont to attend Vermont Law School, where she earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Law and Policy. Today she lives in Burlington with her husband, a physician, who is starting his residency at UVM.
Birds weren’t the focus of Emily’s education, though she noticed that they somehow became a theme in much of what she did, including in grad school, where she did research on Sage Grouse in Colorado. And, as a lifelong nature lover, birds like Common Yellowthroat, her spark bird, have always been embedded in her outdoor experience. She sees that affinity in others, as well. “I think birds are gateway organisms for getting people to care about the natural world. They’re ever-present in our daily lives, and the more you think about them, the more you get thrilled to recognize familiar faces in the backyard. For many, they’re what get people to think about the natural world.”
Emily serves on the Communications Committee, as well as on the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, where she hopes her presence will help “make birding and natural spaces more inclusive…and bring more people from wider backgrounds into the world of birds and build more stewards for the environment.” It’s work that she excels at as the Director of Science Communications at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. There, Emily utilizes her multidisciplinary background to write about the intersection of science, conservation, and nature, and to educate people and connect them with nature in a sustained and impactful way.
As GMAS continues its mission of protecting birds and their habitat and connecting birds with people, these three new board members will be welcome, diverse, and powerful new advocates.