Denise is a retired natural resources policy analyst who previously worked for the federal government and international organizations. Her career spanned more than 30 years of research, technical assistance and policy analysis for the U.S. Forest Service which focused on aspects of sustainable resource management, international trade, economic development and tropical forestry. Denise earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in forestry from North Carolina State University and her doctorate in the same from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also served two and one-half years in Senegal, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer working as a forestry extension agent and two years in Jakarta, Indonesia on forest policy studies for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Denise’s background includes more than 30 scientific, technical and analytical papers that reflect her national and international work in more than 25 countries. Denise is currently pursuing a number of creative writing projects focused on family and local histories.