Amanda directs Wilburforce Foundation's efforts to enhance the ability of the regional programs and their grantees to effectively adopt and share scientific information, methods, tools, and solutions while keeping an eye to important opportunities that cut across all Wilburforce funding regions.

Prior to coming to the foundation in 2011, Amanda worked throughout western North America, studying topics such as restoration of imperiled prairie habitats in the Pacific Northwest, the population viability of rare plants in Oregon, the impacts of biological control agents on invasive weeds in Montana, small mammal ecology in the Rocky Mountains, and the effects of climate change on arctic tundra in Alaska. She received her PhD in Biology from the University of Washington and her BS in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana. Amanda also serves on the Board of Directors of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation in New Haven, Connecticut. Outside of work, Amanda and her husband can be found chasing their toddler daughter around Washington’s wonderful parks and beaches, encouraging a budding naturalist by introducing her to creatures scaly and slimy, and plants spiky and spiny.