Margaux Shearer

Margaux works on ELPC’s development team, where she helps grow and manage the organization’s foundation grants program, combining a love of writing with a commitment to environmental conservation. Before joining ELPC, she worked at the Chicago Tribune as both an editor and designer, then traded the newsroom for the decidedly windier University of St Andrews. There, she earned an MSc in Global Sustainable Development, focusing on environmental management. Her dissertation explored how hiking and storytelling can deepen our relationships with coastal landscapes and encourage local stewardship. Her work has taken a few different forms, but it keeps returning to the same questions: how we understand the places around us, how we communicate what matters about them, and what makes us want to care for them.

What’s a place you love in the Midwest?

The southwest Michigan coast, especially early in the morning. I love the progression from forest to dunes to Lake Michigan, preferably with my dog leading the way. It’s peaceful and I have yet to master the art of going to the lake without somehow ending up in it.

What drives you to do this work?

I’m drawn to the idea that connection to place cultivates care. Stories can help us understand the natural world not as something separate from us, but as something we’re in relationship with. I want to help strengthen that relationship and the sense of responsibility, curiosity, and stewardship that can follow.