Gabby Zawacki was born and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania and has spent a large portion of her life exploring railroad tracks and hiking trails. Throughout her early life, Gabby became curious in amphibians, particularly eastern gray tree frogs, and other wildlife species native to NEPA. This interest continued throughout her high school career, where she participated in the PA DCNR’s year-round, Community Connections “Watershed” Outdoor Environmental Education Program where she performed experiments on acidity levels in rivers and streams affected by AMD, where EPCAMR were the tour guides and environmental educators. While her interest in the environment never faded, her talent for writing evolved, and rose as her chief interest in high school.
Unsure of a career path when attending Wilkes University, she chose to major in English with a minor in Professional Writing with the intent of going to Graduate School. During the Spring semester of her junior year, Gabby realized she wanted to follow her passion for nature while still utilizing her writing skills. Now finishing up her Senior year at Wilkes, Gabby hopes to become a grant writer/technical writer for an environmental organization, such as EPCAMR. “I never want to stop learning and having a career in an always-evolving field like environmental science, allows me to achieve that.” she emphatically stated.
Currently she is a writer for the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) at Wilkes University writing articles primarily concerned with the Marcellus Shale fracking Industry and the environmental effects caused by this type of resource extraction. She is also the Executive Editor of the Manuscript Literary and Visual Arts Magazine at Wilkes University, where she oversees the production of the Magazine, reviews and edits written and visual submissions, and assists the Executive Editor with decisions regarding scheduling, production, and publishing. She is also a Writing Consultant for the Writing Center at Wilkes University, where she helps other students better their own writing in a variety of fields including Biology, Nursing, English, History, and Pharmacy.
Gabby was previously a Field Research Assistant at Wilkes University assessing the cicada populations at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary using grid systems and she also assessed acorn production from oak trees and collected samples at Wilkes University’s Nuangola Field Site. Gabby is very active in her community. Not only does she partake in all of the previously mentioned positions, she is currently a Writing Workshop Leader for the Domestic Violence Service Center in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where she teaches adults how to write effective resumes and to use writing as a tool for the real world, in addition to publishing a creative writing booklet written by women in the Program.
“EPCAMR is excited to have such a well-rounded Senior from Wilkes University, where we obtain many of our interns on a seasonal basis due to their community involvement and service learning opportunities that they are involved with year round. We are hoping that she can begin to write stories about our projects that we are working on to tell the human side of the work that we do and to expand on the large number of small projects that we undertake in the Coal Fields that are making big differences in our mining impacted watersheds. With having such a small staff, we are often unable to “tell our story” in ways that we would like to because it’s hard to be the guys behind the camera taking pictures capturing all the action, when the guys that are supposed to be behind the cameras are the same guys throwing tires, planting trees, lifting and placing logs for fishery habitat improvements, cutting down woody debris blockages, cleaning culverts of sediment, recovering iron oxide from AMD Treatment ponds, and doing the teaching themselves to the students and community leaders and volunteers that we serve. With Gabby’s background and talents, over the next three months, I think she is going to give us a nice boost in the public relations and community outreach area that we can sometimes lag behind on, unless a newspaper or news station picks up on a story about our innovative, exciting, and hands-0n work.” stated, Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director.
“Gabby is going to get to experience of writing articles, becoming involved in our stream restoration, tree planting, iron oxide recovery, water monitoring, fishery and wildlife habitat improvement projects, environmental education and outreach programs, all in one fell swoop over the next three months. I’m thinking that she’ll be able to take those experiences and write about them in such a way that the general public will be able to understand and comprehend the type of work that we are doing for the public good.” Robert hoped.
“She also wants to learn how to write technical documents, grants, and to develop budgets from a non-profit perspective and we do that daily. I’ll have no problem in letting her immerse herself in the process and stages of development that we get into as we develop our projects that are unique, innovative, usually have never been proposed before, and are cutting edge and out of the box projects that make them all the more intriguing to fund and exciting to work on.” said Robert.
On her first day of the internship, she’s already been assigned two projects that she’ll be reviewing for future news articles later this month. One is on our recently completed stream restoration projects on the Nockley’s Tributary to the Solomon Creek Watershed in Hanover Twp. and Wilkes-Barre, PA and our recent proposal to the PA DEP’s Environmental Education Grant Program to fund an AMD & Pottery Art Education and Outdoor Field Experience Grant in partnership with Wilkes University’s Art Department, Misericordia University’s Art Department, Earth Conservancy, and the Greater Nanticoke Area School District’s 4 & 5th grade classes and Art Teachers. “The only advice, I could give her is to crack those knuckles often, to keep the writer’s cramps in those fingers away! She’s going to have her hands full juggling the amount of projects that we typically work on here at EPCAMR.” joked Robert.
EPCAMR’s first Community Relations Outreach Intern, Gabby Zawacki, collecting rock samples at Francis E. Walter Dam.
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