B.A. Speech Communication, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem NC 1997
M.S. Environmental Education, Audubon Expedition Institute (at Lesley University), 2004
Certified Integrative Health Practitioner, Heartwood Institute, Garberville, CA 2006
Julie’s work as an educator and mentor/counselor has been focused on helping others to identify their unique strengths, cultivate new skills, and discover ways to apply them both personally and professionally. Whether as a health practitioner, educator, writer, or program director, Julie has experienced her greatest professional satisfaction in facilitating the empowerment and self-discovery of others. She has dedicated recent years to writing books, including young adult novels inspired by her experiential education work with youth domestically and abroad.
Her philosophy of education revolves around the fact that we exist in a nested hierarchy of environments that includes our bodies, our communities, and the natural world. She believes that the primary goal of education should be the cultivation of right relationship within and between these environments. In order for a student to learn to value themselves as well as the knowledge they gain, they must possess a fundamental understanding of how they function within their own bodies, communities, and natural surroundings. By cultivating this knowledge, education has the power to foster true stewardship on all levels.
Using her background as a writer, actress, herbal apprentice, and health practitioner, Julie enjoys discovering new ways for people to explore and express interrelationship, whether creatively through writing, dance, or song, through wildcrafting plant medicine, or by learning how best care for self, other, and environment on a daily basis. She is a proud graduate of the Audubon Expedition Institute, which transformed her worldview and forged her determination to become a facilitator of transformative learning experiences for others.