Ashley Oelsen
Ashley Oelsen
After earning degree in International Business and History at the University of Southern California, Ashley Oelsen[1] was responsible for Haworth's USGBC corporate sustainable office solutions. Her team completed the first gold-certified LEED office space in Santa Monica at The Water Gardens before transitioning to the non-profit sector and founding a 501c3 organization.
After enrolling in a Graduate Program at USC, Ashley Oelsen began fieldwork in Tanzania, studying chimpanzee behavior and illegal forest activity. In 2018, she continued her research, focusing on orangutan conservation in Borneo. Ashley Oelsen sit on the Board of Directors for World Education Connection and am an environmental policy consultant for corporations with sustainability initiatives.
In 2019, she was awarded the Earth & Environmental Science Research Grant from UPenn and the Water Center Fellowship in Botswana, addressing watershed issues and researching wetland and dry-land ecosystems while tackling pressing water challenges. Subsequently, Ashley accepted a Federal Policy Fellowship at International Fund for Animal Welfare, working on Capitol Hill with Congressional staff on environmental legislation.
Currently, Ashley Oelsen attend the University of Pennsylvania, earning a graduate degree in Environmental Science with a concentration in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Conservation while working closely with The Water Center. Since 2020, she have been developing a course for Penn Veterinary School of Medicine.
The curriculum focuses on analyzing problems in an ecological context to comprehend the connection between ecosystem health, human health, and animal health gaining a greater understanding of global climate change and the wide-ranging influence of human effects on the planet. The aim is to understand this connectivity allows her to think critically about methods for protecting natural resources and contributing to sustainable, long-term solutions for our community through the lens of ecological significance and environmental health.
Ashley[2] recently completed a Directorate Fellowship position with the United States Fish & Wildlife Service working on land protection, water protection, and the Endangered Species Act. Although the project ended, she remained working two days a week for the USFWS.
At the University of Pennsylvania, Ashley’s research focused on groundwater contamination, environmental toxins from human waste and litter, plastic pollution, water resource scarcity, and preserving biodiversity. She also studied Environmental Law and Policy at Wharton School of Business. At Wharton, Ashley’s studies' focus was Environmental Governance consisting of finding regulatory solutions for ecological problems. This covered prescriptive regulation, mitigation options, public-private partnerships, taxes and penalties, persuasion, litigation, and legislation. Her current research project includes Photo Identification of Santa Monica's Dolphin Population.
Ashley’s aim is to be an informed advocate for sustainable practices to solve environmental challenges in her community through innovative thinking analysis and knowledge of environmental issues and policy. She hope to promote community value in preserving the environment and understanding that the impact that is keeping our natural resources increases economic value for Los Angeles.
Ashley Oelsen possess a diversity of experience beneficial to developing a strategy, especially when faced with complex issues such as environmental preservation, human development, and fish and wildlife conservation. She is a self-motivated person with a passion for social responsibility. She is not afraid to take ownership of groundbreaking projects and am resourceful when faced with a challenge. As a resident of Los Angeles, she is confident about her knowledge will be an asset to the Fish and Wildlife Committee.
World Education Connection
“Education has played an important role in her life; working with an organization that provides the opportunity for students to collaborate, sharing their knowledge with one another is a powerful tool. It is a gift that has continued influence throughout their lives “
Ashley[3] puts a high price on education. At the University of Southern, California Ashley studied history and business before entering the corporate world at publisher McGraw-Hill. After working for various Fortune 500 companies, she started a 501-c3 organization, Sol Foundation,[4] a humane education program for at-risk children with the mission of preventing cruelty to animals through education, awareness, and advocacy by teaching children to respect and empathize with other living creatures and diverse cultures.
She went back to graduate school to study public policy and biological anthropology. Her research brought her to East Africa, living in a remote forest in western Tanzania to study a community of wild chimpanzees. After concluding her research in Tanzania, she continued to travel around Eastern Africa exploring and provided education and awareness to local villages and schools, promoting community value in preserving the environment and understanding that the impact that preserving the land and wildlife increases economic development bring job into local villages.
“Africa has long been a fascination of mine, fueling her immense interest in biological anthropology relating to environmental preservation, combating human-wildlife conflict that threatens endangered species. She is devoted to finding sustainable solutions to the complicated issues surrounding human-wildlife conflict, competition for resources, and peaceful cohabitation resolutions, which will lead to positive outcomes for both parties involved.”
Travel, conversation partnering, activism, and classes in anthropology, biology, history and public policy taught her to think critically about the history of human culture and behavior. Meanwhile, gender-equity organizing and community service in the local African villages and schools made it clear that economic solutions must be developed in order to successfully and sustainably protect wildlife, which holds the key to our own human understanding and evolution. Going into villages and living amongst the people of East Africa, conducting behavioral ecology field research in Tanzania, Ashley brings beneficial scientific knowledge essential to promoting education around the world, especially the co-residents sharing the land with wildlife endangered in their natural habitat.
Ashley’s education, along with her professional achievements, involvement in community service, has honed her analytical skills, led her to study environmental policy in relation to behavioral ecology and science, and given her life and work a social conscience. Additionally, studying the economic difficulties faced by local communities struggling to feed their families while sharing the land with wildlife has forced her to take a realistic look at the limited economy and opportunity which must be resolved in order to preserve species populations in 3rd world countries. Ashley believes that education is the only realistic solution to improving the human population's economic opportunity and is fueled by a strong moral obligation to protect all the species that have so much more to teach us on our human ancestry.
“She have participated in philanthropic educational and environmental advocacy all her life, yet Ashley’s recent experiences radically altered how she viewed the world and its potential for educational change. Additionally, Ashley have a much richer understanding of the exploitation of not only the land and animals but also of the African people and the little educational opportunity for children in the developing world.”
Botswana Partnership
When the sun rises over Mazuku, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the daily search for a valuable resource begins, one we all need to survive. Each morning a procession of women, young and old, start a long walk barefoot, wrapped in traditional African fabric securing a babies on their backs with toddlers in tow. Balanced gracefully on top of each woman’s head is a yellow gasoline container provided by UNICEF to carry water from a source location back to the village. This five-kilometer “on foot uphill commute” in search of water is merely routine for most people in Africa and various parts of the world. Yet as an observer it was humbling to witness leaving an impression etched into her memory. In the United States, we are spoiled by the ease of turning a facet and water comes out. The convenience has made us wasteful, taking for granted finite resource to which we all depend.
While living in a remote part of Tanzania, Ashley[5] was overcome by the generosity of local people despite challenges they face in providing for their families. From Ashley’s time in the field, she learned environmental conservation is NOT effective unless it involves close collaboration with local people. Conservation efforts should seek solutions for the surrounding community, addressing issues such as food and water scarcity, economic opportunity, and land management. She often contemplate the various environmental threats and how she is best suited to protect the wildlife populations struggling to survive. Therefore, Ashley was thrilled to learn of the Internship with Okavango Research Institute engaging in research on wetland and dry-land ecosystems while tackling pressing water challenges. This is an opportunity to enhance her knowledge of water management and the interactions between human, animal, and ecosystem health.
Over the last two decades, human populations have constantly grown and expanded, increasing pressure on natural resources such as water, quite often at the cost of wildlife habitat resulting in animals and plants becoming increasingly at risk around the world. She aim to analyze problems in an ecological context to comprehend the connection between ecosystem health, human health, and animal health gaining a greater understanding of the wide-ranging influence of human effects on the planet.
A healthy environment is essential for animals to flourish, a necessity both for farming enterprises and conservation efforts to succeed. Understanding this connectivity allows Ashley Oelsen to think critically about methods for protecting biodiversity, therefore, contributing to sustainable, long-term solutions for preventing habitat loss. By recognizing the ecological significance of a healthy environment to human health we can create sustainable solutions to improve the lives of local people sharing the land.
The Okavango Delta is one of the most important areas in southern Africa for wildlife profoundly impacting rates of survival. The future of the Delta is of great concern as it is under threat from diseases spread from livestock, human development and exploitation, barriers to wildlife migration from fencing, food and water scarcity, and poverty - all contributing to an alarming decrease in wildlife populations inhabiting the wetland. With the human populations proliferating, the demand on the Delta accumulates. To make matters worse, Namibia is considering extracting water upstream of the Delta for power generation, agriculture and to supply their capital Windhoek.
With the direct and indirect human impact degrading the environment, land habitat for wildlife is being lost at unprecedented rates. Ashley has first-hand exposure to the complexity of environmental threats in the most economically impoverished countries in the world. These experiences provided a deeper understanding of the ecological risks facing biodiversity. For example, to help answer questions about primary forests and threats facing wildlife, she collaborated closely with researchers from around the world, local and national government institutions, as well as conservation NGO’s working in western Tanzania.
Ashley’s team provided critical data on chimpanzee distribution and habitat prioritization for village land-use planning across the region. Afterward, Ashley traveled around eastern Africa, exploring hoping to identify sustainable solutions to complicated issues surrounding the human-wildlife conflict while being respectful to culture and tradition. She has provided education awareness to local villages and schools, promoting the economic value to a community if nature is preserved.
At the University of Pennsylvania, her capstone research focuses on illegal wildlife trade and deforestation. Specifically to combat forest crime through spatial ecology in-order to address core issues creating tensions between biodiversity and human development. Using GIS to identify patterns of illegal forest activity, her aim to build a predictive model for wildlife management and law enforcement.
Ashley Oelsen possess a diversity of experience beneficial when developing a strategy, especially when faced with complex issues such as environmental preservation, human development, and water she is self-motivated with a passion for social responsibility. Ashley is not afraid to take ownership of groundbreaking projects and resourceful when faced with a challenge. As a representative of the University of Pennsylvania, Ashley’s confident of her knowledge will be an asset to the Okavango Water Project.
The Internship with Okavango Research Institute is a fantastic opportunity to get back in the field and contribute to critical work required to ensure a future for the Delta; it would be a privilege to be part of the team.
