Sharon has a B.S. in Biology and a PhD in Botany and is currently a Teaching Professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where she has won numerous teaching awards.

Trained as a molecular biologist, Sharon has a deep love of nature. She grew up on a farm in Iowa (USA) and spent much of her childhood outside. After deciding to focus on teaching, she has become more of a generalist and naturalist and has worked with countless college students and worked to get them to appreciate biology and nature.

In the past several years, she has turned her attention to providing outdoor experiences (including Forest Bathing) to college students and started offering a course called The Nature Fix to college students during the pandemic, allowing them to have an in-person course and to get outside. This led her to become an FTHub Certified Forest Therapy Practitioner, which allows her to combine her greatest passions – nature and teaching.

She plans to work with campus health services to find ways for students to use nature to help them deal with stress and to offer a course combining human physiology and the benefits of forest bathing.