Tanis Gieselman moved to the Okanagan in 1989, where she grew up falling in love with the West Kelowna wilderness. She particularly enjoys botanizing, snowshoeing, cycling, hiking, and camping. After completing a BSc. in Ecology at Okanagan University College in 2005, she became especially aware of conservation issues in the Okanagan, and began studying seed-saving technologies as a means for conserving native biodiversity outside of parks and protected areas.
In 2008 she moved to Vancouver to complete an MSc. at UBC. Her research investigated the impact of various types of human development on the edges of remaining grasslands, and demonstrated that the edges of Okanagan grasslands become degraded on average 30 m from the edge of roads and agricultural fields. She hopes to her research will compel others account for these impacts when planning for protected areas, and plant more native species to reduce the impact of development. After her MSc., Tanis stayed in Vancouver for five years to be a science educator at UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Musuem, while continuing to develop her seed-saving strategy in Kelowna. She returned to Kelowna in 2015 to work with the Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Program (OCCP) as the Projects Coordinator. She feels very privileged to have been given the opportunity to be a part of the COLT team.
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