Jessie Merriam

Jessie's research and work has centered on the question of how creative education can re-center human communities--neighborhoods, managers, governing agencies--in whole-ecosystem thinking. She has a background in food service and farming from Georgia to Minnesota, wild food harvest research in Indigenous communities in Alaska, and public history research into  the ecological impacts of infrastructure and resource extraction in Minnesota. As an artist and writer she is interested in using creative practice and multiple forms of communication for different learning styles. Her practice includes history education in accessible formats such as outdoor mobile museums, Arc-GIS storymaps, and shadow puppet shows. She also has a background in community projects at various scales: art + ecology workshops and camps with Urban Roots and Tamales y Bicicletas, co-designing and facilitating a Frogtown Climate Carnival, and a local oral history variety show series called the "Twin Cities Time Machine" featuring food, music, and live storytelling in various Twin Cities neighborhoods.

As the Community-Engaged Research Coordinator working with the Center for Changing Landscapes (CCL) and the Minneapolis/St. Paul Long-Term Ecological Research project (MSP LTER), Jessie is interested in helping scientists and local communities co-create research questions and actionable data. This involves developing thoughtful MOUs between the University and communities, hands-on outreach and accessible data and publications based on shared research, and orienting such work toward building pressure at various scales for ecosystem resilience.