Shivani Gogna
School Year Program Manager
Pronouns: She/Her
Favorite Being: Urtica Dioica
Shivani spent her youngest years playing with her sister by the creek and in the woods behind their home. Her fondest and most vivid childhood memories include the changing colors of the seasons, crisp fresh air on her skin, the sound of flowing water, and the feeling of the warm sun after a long winter. After childhood, her parents relocated to a concrete jungle. When she finally moved to the rural Snoqualmie Valley after completing a Masters degree in Public Health, she was overloaded with nature nostalgia, quickly seeing and feeling that nature connection is one of the most accessible and powerful tools for building healthy communities. She is now committing herself to spreading nature connection to as many people as possible, teaching skills and routines as quickly as she can learn them. You can sometimes find Shivani tending to plants, hanging out with kids, exploring riverbeds, having a fire with her friends, or playing Ukulele. If you follow the sound of laughter, you might also find Shivani – she loves to laugh!
Brooke Kale
Pronouns: She/Her
Favorite Being: Artist’s conk mushroom, barred owl, elephant
Brooke grew up in the deserts of Southern California, catching lizards, rolling in dirt, getting sunburnt, and climbing lots of trees. She spent her summers as a teen attending Wilderness Awareness School overnight camps, during which she fell in love with the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest and began practicing nature connection and survival skills. After many years of visiting Washington during the summer months to either attend or instruct Wilderness Awareness School programs, Brooke joined the Nature Instructor Training Program.
Some of her passions include cooking (both indoor and outdoor), dancing, making music, hand-made crafts, plant medicine, blindfold games, and playing in the rain.
Nicole Olmstead
Pronouns: They/Them
Favorite Being: Banana slug, fire
Nicole grew up in Seattle and has worked for WAS for several years doing summer camps and monthly programs. Nicole graduated from The Immersion, class of 2023. She is enthusiastic about survival and bushcraft skills, fire, plunging into cold water, plant medicine, nature tea, navigating without maps or compasses, games, and being still and watching the world turn.
Wander Grant
Pronouns: He/They
Favorite Being: Red Huckleberry, Weasels
Wander was born and raised in the PNW and spent his childhood hiking and exploring the greater Washington area with family and friends. His interests include gardening, hiking, camping, botany, ecopsychology, and environmental education. He found WAS in 2019 as a volunteer and continued to volunteer and attend teen programs for 5 summers, learning from amazing instructors until joining summer staff in 2024. This year, he’s excited about shelter building, wandering/exploration, plant ID, map-making, and playing lots and lots of games!
Charlie Latkowski
Pronouns: He/Him
Favorite Being: Arbutus menziesii
Charlie’s youth was full of spontaneous outdoor adventures, most of which involved going on epic quests, being really silly, or doing both at once. He’s been involved with Wilderness Awareness School programs since he was small – more recently, he has instructed and directed summer programs. He is also a graduate of The Immersion, class of ’25. He is thrilled to be instructing monthlies this year!
Charlie is passionate about baking, friction fire, music and song, storytelling, trees, and games of all kinds.
Sarah McLean
Pronouns: She/Her
Favorite Being: A tiger, and I have one tattooed on my arm
Sarah was born and raised in South Texas, where she spent most of her time exploring the forests and rivers of the Hill Country, the mesquite- and cactus-filled Chihuahuan Desert, and swimming in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. After moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she turned 18, she fell in love with the nearby mountains and could be found there day and night. During her time in Americorps, she and her team spent three beautiful summer months north of Seattle, going on hikes every weekend. After completing her Master’s of Public Health at UTHealth Houston, she knew she wanted to reconnect with the beautiful forests, rivers, and mountains of Western Washington again, but this time she wanted to share these experiences with young people just like her father had done for her as a child. Sarah has worked for multiple youth summer programs and has experience in traditional classroom settings, but prefers sitting in trees, eating freshly-picked salmonberries, and going on hikes where the uphill sections make her wonder if she’s going to make it to the end.
Ruth Sawyer
Pronouns: They/Them
Favorite Being: For now, I choose camas
Ruth grew up in Sacramento, CA, and has lived on two continents and both coasts! They moved to Washington state in 2010. For most of their professional life, Ruth has primarily worked in experiential education. They have taught topics as varied as boat-building, environmental justice and advocacy, trail construction, outdoor survival, sailing, leadership, and marine science. They love to sing, dance, wander the landscape, practice martial arts, listen to birds, study plants, and play guitar and ukulele.
Jacob Skolnick
Pronouns: He/Him
Favorite Being: Hummingbird
Jacob was born and raised in Seattle and has always loved heading outside for an adventure. After starting in several youth programs, he’s spent the past five years working with Wilderness Awareness School. He enjoys everything about wilderness survival, from building shelters to identifying edible berries, and exploring off-trail. Jacob especially loves sharing his excitement for nature by playing games and making every adventure entertaining, silly, and fun.
Grace Vogler
Pronouns: She/Her
Favorite Being: Monotropa uniflora (Ghost Pipe) and Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi mushroom)
Grace spent the last several years in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina, where her personal journey of rewilding grew alongside her work with children in outdoor settings. She has supported youth through afterschool programs, garden education, wilderness trips, and summer camps. Drawn to root this work in community and deepen her learning, she enrolled in the Youth Nature Instructor Training (YNIT) program at Wilderness Awareness School. Grace’s love for the plant and animal beings around her fuels her passion, often expressed through nature journaling, plant medicine, and quiet time in the forest.
Enver Wong
Pronouns: They/Them
Favorite Being: American bittern, licorice fern, alpine lakes
Born and raised in the lush PNW temperate rainforest, Enver started attending WAS summer programs as a youth and soon became more involved, eventually volunteering, joining and later volunteering for the school year teen monthly program Wild Within, instructing and assistant directing summers, and in 2023, they graduated from The Immersion. Alongside natural connection mentoring work, Enver works as an EMT in Yakima County and holds a wilderness EMT certification. Enver can often be found plunging in any bodies of wild water, singing in community or other related music endeavors (especially looping and improv!), cooking the Enver curry, naturalist and non-naturalist nerding out (especially about birds), making things with natural materials, doing anything blindfolds and sensory play, reading all the books, melding into the rhythms of the natural world, and chasing/being chased by their housemates’ critters.