Beca Borkowski

Background

About Beca Borkowski

My passions include preserving wild lands, promoting social justice, and empowering community resiliency against climate change. I received my M.S. in Environmental Conservation from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2021 and my bachelor’s degree in Global Security, focused on natural resource security and international human rights, from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 2020. My undergraduate studies were focused on international environmental issues related to globalization, primarily how natural resource scarcity impacts international human rights, while my master's degree was focused on conservation sciences. I was inspired to learn technical skills to help the land and the people facing the greatest impacts from climate change after my time working with climate refugees from Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. My intention with these multidisciplinary degrees was to combine my passion for human rights and natural resource management to approach conservation from an anthropological perspective, to ensure the projects I lead are culturally suensitive, and to make the science of conservation more approachable and actionable to the general public. Through my current role as the Executive Director for the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education (WAEE), I work every day to promote bonds with nature, healthy living, and environmental responsibility for the next generation of climate leaders while managing a statewide nonprofit with over 500 active members of educators in Wisconsin.