Congratulations to Dr. Madeline Brown, who was awarded a grant from BSOS's Dean's Research Initiative for her project titled "TREKS: Trails, route-making, environmental knowledge and stewardship study". Employing multi-sited ethnography, Dr. Brown will explore how bottom-up visions of conservation are developed by communities of protected area users centered around route-making and world building practices. Focusing on the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails, Dr. Brown will examine how trail building practices shape individual and community identities and stewardship ethics, how information about trail-building communities, practice, and ecological knowledge are shared through social networks, storytelling and place naming, and trace the trail building process from conceptualization and regulation to physical construction and ongoing maintenance.