Title: GIS Technician
Employer: Greenville Water
Prior Roles: Americorps Volunteer with Palmetto Conservation Foundation; Graduate Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UIUC

Alessa graduated from Integrative Biology in 2019 and then got her Master's in Dr. Ken Paige’s lab here at UIUC focusing on wildlife conservation. Alessa is also an alum of the IB career class!

She is currently a GIS (geographic information systems) Technician for Greenville Water and before that she was a volunteer with Americorps.  She worked with the Palmetto Conservation Foundation maintaining and building trails across South Carolina, collaborating with NGOs, state and federal agencies to achieve goals. 

"There is no one correct path and sometimes life takes you to unexpected places that benefit your long term goals!"

She met her Master's advisor, Dr. Paige, in a class she took with him. One of the most impactful things about her IB degree was the opportunity to take classes in which professors are open to having undergraduates become a part of their labs.

Alessa’s thesis project focused on population genetics and how it can be used to aid in conservation efforts. She worked with a state-threatened species of salamander named Silvery salamander. Information gathered during her project will help management agencies in the improvement of man-made and natural ponds. She has also been a TA of Ecology and Physiology as a graduate student, getting a unique perspective of the classes she took just a few years ago. She really enjoyed interacting with her students and teaching them all the things that she loved learning when she was an undergrad.

“IB might be a broad degree but that is exactly what I loved so much about it, you can really make it your own by taking classes and getting involved in research that you are interested in.”

Talk to Alessa if you are interested in wildlife conservation or going to graduate school. Contact Christina Swanson at alumnimentor@sib.illinois.edu if you would like to connect with Alessa.