Welcome GrizzlyCorps Fellows!

MWPA is thrilled to again welcome two GrizzlyCorps Fellows, Andrea Salinas and Alaina Bensching, for the next 11 months.

GrizzlyCorps is a AmeriCorps fellowship launched in 2020 designed by Project Climate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment in partnership with CaliforniaVolunteers. The program sends recent college graduates into rural communities across California to promote regenerative agri-food systems and fire and forest resilience. MWPA was privileged to host two GrizzlyCorps fellows, Maria Schmitt and Josh Hampshire, last year and both are continuing to work with MWPA. Read on to learn more about Andrea and Alaina.

Andrea Salinas was born and raised in the tropical climate of El Salvador. She moved to the U.S. to further her education and in 2019 she earned a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences with an emphasis in Human Biology at the University of California, Merced. While in school, she formed part of various pre-med and environmental stewardship programs which led her to spend a season in Yosemite National Park (YNP) as part of the Search and Rescue team. During her season at YNP, Andrea experienced one of the major forest fires up to this date –The Ferguson Fire.

Since then she became fascinated with forest restoration projects and all the novel research being conducted in the Sierra Nevadas. This opened the door to a new field and she decided to work as a Research Assistant for the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. She worked in two different research labs focusing on adaptation to environmental stressors. In the first lab, she worked on a project with endangered Western Pond turtles where she performed DNA extractions from blood samples. In the second lab, she collected pine needles from Pinus Contorta along the Sierra Nevada mountain range and performed DNA extractions with the purpose of studying endophytes. She then transitioned into working on her research project after spending a season working for the U.S Forest Service in the state of Montana. She is currently finishing her Master’s degree in Quantitative Systems and Biology with a concentration in Microbial Ecology and is excited to start working with the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority as a Grizzly Corps Fellow.

Andrea will be working on various roles at the MWPA, from creating accessible material for Spanish-speaking communities in Marin to developing defensible space project plans. With her experience in bioinformatics and all the time spent in forest ecosystems, she hopes to develop a better understanding of fire ecology to become a more well-rounded ecologist. Andrea is excited to get to know another part of California and in her free time, you can find her cooking up a good meal, mountain biking, or backpacking in the Sierras.

Alaina Bensching is also an MWPA's GrizzlyCorps fellows for the year of 22-23. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she moved to the Bay Area for college. In 2020 she earned her Bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Santa Clara University with a minor in studio art. She is excited to be in the North Bay now and to explore the landscape of Marin. After serving as a fellow this year she hopes to go on to graduate school for regenerative studies or sustainable management. Before coming to the MWPA she worked at a nonprofit involved in environmental education and organic farming.

Her work with the MWPA will be on public outreach and project implementation. More specifically, she will organize field trips to project sites for the public, set up systems for project documentation, and create webinars among other things. The most exciting part of working at MWPA is that she gets to be a part of some amazing projects that have the potential to save lives, preserve homes, decrease fire severity, and prevent further carbon emissions from going into the atmosphere. In the first few weeks she feels she has already learned a lot and she is thankful for all the opportunities she is being provided through MWPA and GrizzlyCorps

Welcome to the MWPA team Andrea and Alaina!

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