Hi, I’m Hope Sampson and I’m GBCA’s new Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator! I’ll be serving in this position through early November as part of Montana Conservation Corps’ Big Sky Watershed Corps program. I grew up in North-Central Pennsylvania and have been living in Montana going on five years. In 2025 I graduated from the University of Montana with a BS in Geography and Environmental Science & Sustainability.
Over the past four years I’ve spent extensive time in the field through both jobs and classes, through which I’ve developed a strong interest in aquatic ecology and watershed management, on both local and global scales. In my role with GBCA, I’ll be learning more about the human elements of conservation, such as advocacy and education, and how they can be leveraged to engage the general public and make scientific concepts more digestible. In my time here I also hope to utilize my background to develop watershed-related programming and partnerships that add to GBCA’s current terrestrially focused volunteer and educational projects.
My background in geography has fostered a desire to understand connections between ecology, geology, hydrology, and human systems and study how those relationships shape landscapes over time. While I’ve spent some time in GBCA’s mission area before, I’m excited to become fully immersed in it this field season and learn about the complexities that have shaped it into what it is today.
Growing up I spent a lot of time walking through the woods with my dad, asking all sorts of questions about why things were the way they were. I was always wondering about the little things, like why deer rubbed their antlers on trees in the fall, which berries were safe to snack on, how beavers made their dams, and what animal track I was looking at. While I didn’t know it at the time, my curiosity was helping me develop a naturalist mindset. This holistic but detailed way of observing and studying our natural world is the basis of modern science, and is at the core of GBCA’s mission.
I love to ski, hunt, fish, and bike and have spent the past five years developing my naturalist education of Western Montana through these hobbies, and my various jobs. I still ask lots and lots of questions to this day! I’m excited to continue learning about this incredible region through my position, and to share my knowledge and curiosity about the natural world with the communities I serve.
