Trish O'Kane is an environmental educator who uses action-research to promote environmental and social justice. She created the “Birding to Change the World” service learning course and program at University of Wisconsin-Madison while completing her doctorate. She believes in harnessing the power of passionate, knowledgeable and energetic students to help solve community and global problems.

Before studying the natural sciences Trish worked as a human and civil rights investigative journalist for a decade in Central America and five years in the Deep South. In Guatemala she worked for the United Nations investigating massacres perpetrated by the Guatemalan military. In Alabama she conducted research on white supremacist groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Trish has also taught writing in a women’s prison. Author of Guatemala: the People, Politics and Culture, she has written for major media including The New York Times. She lives, birds, writes and gardens in Burlington, Vermont along with her husband, Jim Carrier—a writer, banjo picker and filmmaker--and their dog, Nova, who has a dog-torate in tennis balls.