Growing Up in Nature's Recovery

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I grew up hiking the White Mountains of New Hampshire, spending time on trails through forests I assumed had always been there. It wasn't until later that I learned most of those forests were farmland a century ago; the stone walls I climbed over were boundaries of old pastures. The "wilderness" I loved was actually one of the largest ecological recovery experiments in American history.

 

What I couldn't see was the invisible transformation beneath my feet: soil bacteria and fungi slowly rebuilding networks that took millennia to develop. It wasn't until years later that I learned these microbes aren't just essential for forest health, they're the source of medicines that make modern surgery and fighting infections possible. 

 

The Convergence

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Antibiotic resistance is spreading at the same time that forest ecosystems are declining—fragmenting under climate change and development pressure. We're at risk of losing the microbial diversity that supports ecosystem health and harbors future cures, precisely when medicine needs them most. ​But there's enormous potential. Across New England alone, roughly 80% of the landscape is rewilding forest. This amounts to millions of acres where soil microbial recovery could be supported.​

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Why This Matters to Me

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This project positions me at the intersection of ecology and public health, bridging rigorous science with practical application, creating a tool practitioners can actually use. If the hMRI works in the forests I grew up exploring, it could scale across New England and beyond. Every forest we assess becomes more than ecological restoration—it's public health infrastructure, protecting the microbial diversity that future medicines may depend on.