About

"What being a naturalist has come to mean to me,

sitting my mornings and evenings by the river, 

hearing the clack of herons

through the creak of swallows

over the screams of osprey

under the purl of fox sparrows,

so far removed from White and Darwin and Leopold and even Carson, is this:

Pay attention to the mystery."

—Barry Lopez, "The Naturalist"

About the blog

Welcome to Natural Selections. This place is primarily a blog. Since 2013, I've been gathering stories of nature and people, microbes and megafauna, health and disease, oceans, farms, forests, and so much more. I share those stories here.

Natural Selections is also a home for my sketch-noting, photography, journalism and ecological research. If you're interested in commissioning a sketch-note (for science communication!) or purchasing 5 x 7-inch wildlife photography cards for $3 each (envelopes included!) please send me an e-mail.

About the author

I'm Nina, a doctoral student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Natural History Museum. Research Manager with Health In Harmony. Udall, Goldwater, Hollings, Watson, Marshall, and OneZoo scholar. I play ultimate frisbee and listen to the herons clack as often as possible.

For the past eight years, I've been investigating the Anthropocene Epoch from the perspective of microbes in Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Canadian Arctic.

The author Brook Williams said, "The only stories worth telling are ones that will help us figure out how to flourish in the future." I'm gathering multi-species stories to understand how humans, wildlife, and pathogens can collaborate in our survival.

As you take a look around Natural Selections, feel welcome to poke through the archives. I hope a mystery or two will catch your attention, if only for a moment.

Say hi at ninafinley176 (at) gmail (dot) com.