Jenna grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where her favorite memories include paddling the family canoe through wild rice stands, sandbar camping on the Wisconsin River, and spending quiet afternoons on the city’s chain of lakes. Though beautiful, those lakes became unswimmable earlier each summer, impacted by land use in the watershed. Seeing this, Jenna was pulled to explore land stewardship through regenerative farming, and later study natural resource engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing her degree, a desire to learn more about stream ecosystems led her to the Northwest, where she led crews performing fish habitat surveys and later worked as a hydrology technician with the Forest Service. She quickly fell in love with the streams and landscapes of the west. Her work brought her to a diversity of streams across Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah – from pristine headwaters to heavily degraded systems – helping her develop an intuitive sense for the ecological and geomorphic function of stream systems and a deep appreciation for their complexity.
In spring of 2021, Jenna joined RDG in Corvallis, uniting her engineering education with her love for rivers and streams. In her free time, she can be found hiking, biking, botanizing, and admiring the architectural achievements of the local beaver population.
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” – Mary Oliver