Across their work, Nova's guiding goal has always been to create visibility and access for marginalized communities. As part of this goal, they've been a public speaker, presenting and participating on panels for a variety of colleges and corporations, since 2014. Through these engagements they've not only been able to consult corporations and organizations on effective intersectional practices to serve the queer community, but to help young minds find paths to achieving their goals. Showing the world what it looks like to be a trans person living their life authentically has proven time and time again to be highly impactful for the groups they meet with.
Nova working with Hunter, a great horned owl resident to Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center
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Nova has been speaking with college student groups since they were an undergrad at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. On top of their teaching courses, they volunteered on their student Pride Board and the Speakers Bureau, a student group dedicated to educating fellow classmates about marginalized experiences through scheduled classroom visits. Their background in Environmental and Outdoor Education combined with their experience serving on affinity groups has well prepared them to be an engaging storyteller and speaker.
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After graduating they started working at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC and became the co-founder of the Nat Geo PRIDE employee resource group. While leading a committee of volunteers and organizing events to build internal and external community, as co-chair they had the opportunity to meet with company leadership, including the CEO and heads of the National Geographic Magazine, to discuss approaches to supporting queer employees and creating informed queer content.
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A snapshot of Nova and their board members leading the Nat Geo PRIDE group in the DC Pride parade.
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Nova speaking with students about exploration opportunities after a presentation at Texas A&M University at Galveston.
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Since leaving National Geographic to pursue a career in freelance filmmaking, Nova now travels as a guest speaker and panelist to talk all things art, science, and what it's like to be queer in the field. Through wild stories, compelling visuals, behind-the-scenes glances, and bonus film screenings, Nova's approach to outreach and education is anything but run of the mill. While on campuses they also meet one-on-one with students to help advise them on their career path and find ways that they could potentially help with the process. Their main takeaway in these visits is to show students that anyone can be an explorer, given the necessary access, tools, and resources.
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Nova's work as a speaker doesn't stop at the shore. While at sea aboard the E/V Nautilus Nova also participates in 'Ship-to-Shore' interactions, speaking with classrooms across the world to talk about deep sea exploration. From dazzling third graders with shark sightings to engaging PhD students with the innerworkings of mapping benthic zones, these frequent interactions are always fun and exciting for all parties and provide the opportunity to collaborate with their shipmates in a unique way. As part of their contracted engagement, they also get to speak on the E/V Nautilus livestream about the important work the E/VNautilus does and how Nova bring their whole self to the environment.
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Nova and Ocean Exploration Trust's Director of Education and Outreach, Megan Cook, conducting a live Ship-to-Shore interaction with a Texas classroom while sailing off the coast of Maui.
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Nova is currently accepting requests to speak throughout 2023. If your college, student group, festival, organization, or community group is interested in inviting Nova to speak, you can reach out to them via the 'CONTACT' tab in the navigation menu or at the bottom of this page. Nova operates on a sliding scale honorarium to limit financial barriers for smaller organizations and groups.
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