Meet the 2025 Planning Team

Danielle Belleny is a San Antonio-raised wildlife biologist and birder. In 2022, Danielle published her first book, This Is A Book For People Who Love Birds, and in 2023 she released a children’s book, The Junior Birders Handbook, Currently, Danielle works as a staff biologist at Plateau Land & Wildlife Management in Texas. In her free time, she enjoys nature watching in cemeteries. Other work by Danielle centers the biological importance of cemeteries and encourages a shift in North American death culture. Her writings can be found in Birding and Vermilion Flycatcher.

Photo Credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (c) 2022, (Maegan Lanham, TPWD)

Starting at Yale University as an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major, Adé is currently pursuing both a B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in Biology at Southern Connecticut State University. Adé’s interests include evolution, paleontology, and science communication and outreach. He has worked at the Yale Peabody Museum as both a collections assistant and tour guide, observed the feeding habits of common terns in Maine with Project Puffin, excavated fossils in Arizona’s Painted Desert, and currently runs the YouTube channel Adasaur, focusing on prehistoric life and highlighting the diversity of the ancient past and the people who research it.

Ayanna (she/her) was born and raised in the US Virgin Islands but moved to the US mainland to attend Tuskegee University. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science, Ayanna has traveled across many states working on projects in restoration, land management, and research. As a wildlife conservationist she enjoys wildlife surveys the most, “nothing more interesting than watching different animals behavior”, she said. In her spare time, she loves taking weekend trips to public lands, hiking and bird watching, while also traveling the world to experience diverse cultures and ecosystems.

Deja is a Geospatial Analytics Ph.D. student, bird guide, and public STEM figure at NC State University. Her work prioritizes investigating environmental data gaps in low-income and minority neighborhoods and connecting communities with participatory science as a tool for creating community connection, awareness, and advocacy. With a B.Sc. in Natural Resources and an M.Sc. in Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation Biology, she uses her training to connect people across North Carolina with neighborhood nature through a variety of virtual, in-person, visual, and auditory experiences.

Jen holds a master’s degree in creative arts therapy and is currently working towards her licensure as a mental health counselor. In 2019, she was inspired to create an artist’s collaborative to combine her professional and creative arts identities. This collaborative ultimately became Warrior Dreamzz LLC a team of visual visionaries who specialize in the film art form Eco-Cinema. Their films sit at the intersection of entertainment, education and advocacy.

Joseph is a life-long lover of nature and wildlife. As an adult he became a wildlife photographer to document his experiences outdoors. His work has been featured in the Smithsonian, Audubon Magazine, Discover Wildlife, and Bloomberg Magazine, as well as on the Ologies podcast. A graduate of University of Oklahoma with a degree in Sociology focused on inequality and systemic oppression, his photography has also been archived at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. You can find him staring adoringly into the anterior median eyes of jumping spiders, narrowly avoiding snake bites, listening to the cacophony of amorous frogs and toads, or birding.

Dara has an affinity for watching organisms interact with their environment and is currently researching meaningful ways to connect historically excluded populations to natural and cultural resources through funded placemaking projects. She has had the pleasure of interpreting wildlife at the Smithsonian National Zoo, conducting microsurgery on passerine birds in tropical primary and secondary rainforests, walking rehabilitated mountain lions in Bolivia’s Amazonian jungle, and fighting invasive/non-native plant species in Florida’s panhandle. Driven by the desire to deepen her awareness of the world, yet cognizant of the role systemic racism plays in ownership, access, and the perceived threat of violence in outdoor spaces, Dara’s latent introduction into meaningful scientific inquiry as it relates to coexisting organisms resulted in a fascination with the natural world that transcended into deep questioning concerning issues of access, opportunity, visibility, and narratives.