Gigi Knowlton
Watershed Project Coordinator
Host Site: Upper Merced River Watershed Council
Gigi is a returning, 2nd year AmeriCorps member, continuing her service as our Watershed Project Coordinator for the Upper Merced River Watershed Council. She is a Sierra Nevada native who grew up in Prather, CA, playing waterpolo, trail running, and paddle boarding who last year moved to Bass Lake to be closer to Mariposa, where her host site is located. Gigi returned to the Sierra after having studied Biology (focused in wildlife and ecology) and minored in biochemistry back east, in Massachusetts. There, she competed in triathlons all over the United States in national parks and forests for her collegiate women’s team, where she found her love for all things wild. Since studying species recovery and resilience to wildfire, spending 2 years surveying for protected raptors and other species of special interest in Sierra National Forest, volunteering to restore mangrove forests in Costa Rica, and co-founding a small nonprofit -The Creek Fire Project, Gigi moved home nurturing her career towards environmental restoration and species sustainability.
Gigi is an avid reader, hiker, and outdoors enthusiast who is always looking for new opportunities to grow and expand the knowledge she collects. This experience reached out to her by opening a window to a new side of the Sierra, allowing her to get back involved with mountain communities, and work on one of the watersheds that contributes to her beautiful home. She had never imagined that the glacially carved canyon and winding channels of the Merced River would shape her career. During college, she worked as a biology and chemistry tutor, tackling everything from microbiology and anatomy to biochemistry, and served as the Lead Lab Assistant for both departments. That experience sparked her passion for helping people learn and understanding the science she loved. Serving with the Upper Merced River Watershed Council has offered her everything she could think of- raw data analysis, amazing networking opportunities, community education and stewardship, developing field programs, and pairing her start-up mindset with full-system recovery. Gigi has returned for another season to work on the development of projects she began last season, and directly serve the watershed and community she has become committed to
