Upper Oconee Watershed Network- Board

Board Members

Brenda Rashleigh (President)
Brenda Rashleigh has an M.S. in Environmental Science/Water Resources and Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, serves on the board of Georgia River Network, and volunteers as a trainer for Georgia's Adopt-A-Stream Biological program.

Jesslyn Shields (Vice-President)

Jesslyn Shields is the vice president of UOWN and Watershed Support Coordinator at Georgia River Network, a statewide river advocacy group based in Athens. She received her M.S. in Environmental Studies from University of Montana in 2006. In between bouts of schooling, Jesslyn worked as a technician in a stream ecology lab at UGA, learning to identify and love tiny fish. Jesslyn has served on UOWN's board since 2007, and contributes internal capacity building skills as well as a passion for clean, healthy Oconee River!

Peter Norris (Treasurer)
Peter is new to the UOWN board. He has volunteered with many local organizations including BikeAthens and Athfest. He is manager of Instructional Technology and Media Services for College of Education at UGA and has an undergraduate degree in Computing Science and a MA in Educational Technology. His interests include the economic valuation of water quality. You can reach him via email: treasurer -at- uown.org.

Katherine Edmonds
Katherine is a new Masters student in the River Basin Center, School of Ecology (UGA). She will be working in Northwest Georgia to help further conservation efforts in the Coosa watershed. After graduating with a BA in Biology from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, she spent 5 years in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho as a NOLS river instructor and ski and snowboard instructor. She became interested in water policy and decided to head back to school in order to help change the way we currently manage our freshwater ecosystems.

Bryan Nuse

Bryan Nuse is a graduate student in the Warnell School of Forest and Natural Resources (UGA), studying floodplain ecology. His statewide canoeing experience with a small group of river enthusiasts, the Georgia River Survey, led him to join the UOWN board here at home. Bryan maintains uown.org, and you can direct email regarding the website to him at: webmaster -at- uown.org.

Jessica Sterling
Jessica Sterling is a long-time board member and the recent president of UOWN. She is currently a graduate student in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia where she is researching the ecological impacts of urbanization on Trail, Hunnicutt and Brooklyn creeks in Athens, GA.

Amy Trice

Dave Wenner
Dr. Dave Wenner is Associate Professor of Geology at UGA with teaching and research interests in environmental chemistry of surface and groundwater waters. He holds a B.S. Chemistry, University of Cincinnati, M.S. Geology, California Institute of Technology and Ph.D. Geochemistry and Geology, California Institute of Technology. Dr. Wenner has served as a board member for the Upper Oconee Watershed Network for four years and also serves on the board of Georgia River Network.

email upperoconee@yahoo.com
Postal address:
Upper Oconee Watershed Network
P.O. Box 531
Athens, Georgia, USA 30603