Nadine has been puzzling over the impact of stories and media since high school and proceeded to get two degrees in the interdisciplinary field of Communications focused on the impact of all media on society. At her master's degree graduation the dean of her program affirmed her natural state of being by reminding all the graduates to go forth and Question Authority. More than thirty years later with the informationsphere more complex and volatile than ever she still practices, respectfully, from that place of inquiry.
As an independent scholar, community organizer, and bridge-builder Nadine is rooted by the "we" of unity and holism. Believing that storytelling's power in the wrong hands has brought humanity and the planet to this precipice, she also believes it is possible to rewrite the story away from this apocalyptic edge by changing the story. Nadine's mission is to create as many peaceful ripples as possible to challenge modernities grip on extraction and patriarchal systemic oppression.
She studies Tai Chi Chuan and Daoism for their emptiness and paradoxes. Following the threads of her graduate school thesis, which documented the use of visual communications and the top-down+bottom-up community engagement strategies to achieve Wild and Scenic River conservation/designation, she continues to work as a writer, award-winning public affairs specialist, teacher, consultant, coach, and mentor. Nadine is a frequent lecturer at Middlebury College in Vermont where she was given the nickname both/and by her New Perennials colleagues. Her teachers and mentors include Báyò Akómoláfé, Tara Mohr (Playing Big Coaching Training), Dragon Tree Coaching Program, John Elder, Master Chen wei Tung, Wes Jackson, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Joanna Macy and Jessica Serrante (Work that Reconnects), and many others.
Seeing mycelia networks emerge over and over in the full tapestry of life, Nadine designs and holds spaces for individuals and communities at any scale to reconnect humans to each other and Nature.
Her most important work has been to raise two humans who work in service to change the story. She can be found puzzling on and embracing the mystery with knitting needles, a camera, a book, and a pen - in the woods, by, on, or in any water, in the garden, and around a kitchen island nourishing family and friends.