Episodes

Jan. 20, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge Day 5: Believe

It’s the end of the 5 day challenge! Once you’ve finished today, you’ve made it - but the challenge is not completely over, read until the end… For today, we are learning to BELIEVE. Today is the most important day, so if you...
Jan. 19, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge Day 4: Act

We are officially on day four of the Thrive in Wildlife Career Challenge! I am blown away by how committed and driven you have been throughout the last few days...it makes me so excited to teach you today's lesson! For today,...
Jan. 18, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge Day 3: Ask

We are now halfway through the Thrive in Wildlife Career Challenge ! How's it going? Are you feeling pumped up about having a roadmap started to your wildlife career? Today we're going to go further into how to close the gap ...
Jan. 17, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge Day 2: Map

We officially kicked off day 1, Dream, of the Thrive in Wildlife Career Challenge yesterday and the energy I am getting from you guys is amazing. Thank you for being here. I am excited to continue our journey together this we...
Jan. 16, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge Day 1: Dream

How excited are you to officially begin the Thrive in Wildlife Challenge and learn how to create your own roadmap leading you to your dream job? You’re probably feeling ready to have a career with more certainty leading to mo...
Jan. 14, 2023

Thrive in Wildlife 2023 Career Challenge: 0

Welcome to the Thrive in Wildlife Career Challenge! This is a 5 days challenge of audio messages and short exercises that will teach you how to create your own roadmap to ensure your success in wildlife careers. These audios ...
Dec. 21, 2022

Finding Your Identity in Wildlife Work

When I give advice to young wildlife professionals or those aspiring to go into this career, I always tell them to reverse engineer it. To “start with the end in mind,” (a quote from Stephen Covey), but what if you don’t know...
Dec. 7, 2022

From Web Developer to Starting an Environmental Career: Interview with Melina Shak

Have you ever thought about starting an environmental career, but instead chose a more “safe” and “secure” route? Or maybe you are currently tempted by it or you simply didn’t know how to go about a wildlife career and took a...
Nov. 10, 2022

30 years of Wildlife Career Advice: Interview with fisheries biologist Scott Putnam

It’s no secret that the wildlife or conservation field can be competitive, and many of you have always asked me, “How do I get my foot in the door?” or “Is there any chance that I will get a permanent job in the future?” And ...
June 30, 2022

How I Wrote My First Books and You Can Too!

You may have heard me on social media talk about how I am writing a kids’ book and unless you are new to the podcast, you will already know that I wrote a book called Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology: What It’s Like and What...
May 23, 2022

9 Biggest Mistakes Struggling Wildlife Job Seekers Make

I know that so many of you out there are struggling to get jobs in wildlife biology. I see all of these posts in the wildlife Facebook groups, and when people join my own Facebook group, Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology, I r...
May 18, 2022

Getting a Wildlife Career with NO Wildlife Experience: Interview with Ron Lewis

One of my favorite podcast episodes to share with people is #46: Starting a Wildlife Career at 40: Interview with Jeffrey Hunter . In this episode, I interview Jeffrey Hunter of the National Parks Conservation Association on ...
May 3, 2022

What Do Careers with Endangered Species Look Like?

Whenever I talk to someone who wants my help, I always ask them “What is your ultimate career goal?” and frequently the answer is “something with endangered species. We’ve all seen the videos of scientists opening up a cage w...
April 19, 2022

How Do Scientists Choose Their Research?

Students always ask me – how do I choose my research? When I was in graduate school, this question lingered over me for the first six months. How in the world, out of all of the things to study do I pick something? Most peopl...
April 13, 2022

Should Wildlife Professionals Start a Side Hustle?

I was having some struggles in my business – specifically how to talk about my program to potential student. I was thinking about purchasing a new course to help me with this problem and I was asking my mastermind group membe...
March 14, 2022

Money Mindset in Conservation and Your Career

On this week's podcast, I talk about a hot button issue and one you probably wouldn't expect from a wildlife biology and conservation based podcast: money. I always knew I wouldn't make a lot of money in my career, but was su...
March 1, 2022

Being Productive When You Don’t Want to Be

Productivity seems to be more of a career-oriented topic, but this is actually really important in wildlife and conservation work, and it’s something that is often overlooked. When I was in graduate school and working as a po...
Feb. 15, 2022

7 Ways to Become a Better Biologist on Your Own

In mid 2020 when COVID shut so many things down ( virtually everything), a lot of people lost their volunteer positions, internships, or seasonal positions, and they felt that it really set them back in their career in terms ...
Feb. 1, 2022

Creating a Vision to Accelerate and Amplify Your Wildlife Goals

Hello everyone. And welcome to the Fancy Scientist. We’re still pretty new into the new year, about the end of January. And I am going to talk about the importance of having a vision for the longest time. I did have certain g...
Jan. 18, 2022

Focus on What’s Important By Saying No

Hi guys. I am back. Yes. It's been a minute. If you are a regular listener to this podcast, you will remember. At the end of September, I said I was taking a break originally. I had planned to just take October. But I ended u...
Sept. 28, 2021

The Best is Yet to Come: Thoughts on Getting Older and Life Changes

Is age really just a number? But not me! Instead I developed a mindset to appreciate my age and be grateful for every day I have here. In this podcast, I talk about some major life changes for me – turning 40, changing career...
Sept. 21, 2021

Is Work-Life Balance in Science Possible?

This is a science podcast, so why am I talking about work-life balance? Because so many scientists are bad at it! I can’t even tell you how many scientists brag about working 60 or even 80 hours a week. It seems like everyone...
Sept. 14, 2021

What Makes a Good Mentor?

Everyone should have a mentor when trying to achieve something difficult in life. In science, mentors are unavoidable. They play an essential role. You need research experience to become a scientist, and mentorship is a centr...
Sept. 7, 2021

4 Tips for a Successful Academic Year in Graduate School

Last week on the Fancy Scientist podcast, I went over what graduate school was like and what it’s all about. This week, I talk about how you can have a successful year. Graduate school is not like undergrad. You can’t just st...