After graduating from Frostburg State University in May 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in General Education and a double major in political science and history, I began working as a technical editor for the American Physiological Society in the fall of 1989. I moved into the computer field since my husband and I needed the financial stability that the computer industry could provide us at that point in our lives. After several jobs in computer security, I decided to return to my first love, political science, and completed a Master in Public Administration degree from George Mason University.
Following up on a latent interest in marine conservation issues that was rekindled by my first visit to the Florida Keys, I started work on a PhD in Environmental Science and Public Policy at George Mason University with Dr. Chris Parsons, an internationally recognized expert on cetaceans, as my advisor. My main research interests are interdisciplinary with my primary conservation interests being marine protected areas, marine mammal conservation, and coral reef conservation and my primary political science interests focused on marine policy issues, the efficacy of international regulatory regimes, and the coordination of environmental governance.
My husband Bill Bauer and I married in the summer of 1996 at an 18th century grain mill in Maryland. We have both been involved with medieval reenactment for many years and were married in period garb. We met in the winter of 1986, and it took us about 10 years and a few relationships with other people to figure out we were meant to be together. No one can accuse us of being hasty.
Despite my husband's notorious attraction to redheads, I am not one. We live in Northern Virginia with three psychotic cat who run our lives and who generate a great deal of fur. Besides cats, I love history, politics, stained glass, baseball, college basketball (GO TERPS! ), classic rock, cats, folk music, coral reefs, the Chesapeake Bay, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Celtic knotwork, autumn in Frostburg, and the Florida Keys. If you are ever on Duval Street in Key West, think of me while you are watching the sunset at Mallory Dock.