Hannah Partridge’s interest in conservation began when her parents gifted her a microscope for her 16th birthday. With the microscope she felt intrigued to discover more about wildlife and their habitats. Her love for birds started in her undergrad years at UNC Charlotte, where she took an ornithology course and later co-founded the UNC Charlotte Audubon Campus Chapter. Today she continues to support campus and community chapters daily as a Community Action Manager with the National Audubon Society.
Audubon has over 400 community chapters across the United States, as well as more than 90 campus chapters through the Audubon on Campus program. As Community Action Manager, Partridge is tasked with rolling out the mobilize platform, which assists campus chapters with their events and helps chapters input information in their yearly reports. She is also focused on learning more about the chapters and identifying areas of need.
Student leaders like Partridge serve as a prime example for the future of tomorrow. They actively participate in the school community and gain useful skills while being involved in various organizations and even gaining experience in activism. For example, while she was involved with the UNC Charlotte Audubon Campus Chapter, Partridge oversaw North Carolina Advocacy Day at the campus, where the purpose was to recruit students and adults to talk to lawmakers about bills they were working on. Experiences like this often help students feel more prepared to face the real world because they have acquired knowledge and abilities to foster an environment of responsibility, teamwork, and self-assurance within and beyond their community.
“Being a student leader has given me a lot of really good insight into what the chapters need, what they struggle with, the resources they have or don’t have,” Partridge explained. “So now coming into this new position, I have that knowledge and I can connect with them on that level and understand better what I can do to support.”
Hannah mentioned that her most pivotal experience in wildlife conservation was researching bird window collisions while a student at UNC Charlotte. By then, she had graduated with her degree in Biology and gone on to study vultures and spatial patterns of birds while earning her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Geography. “As a higher-level graduate student, I took on a mentorship role most of the time, and it was my students, not my peers working on this project with me,” she said.
For the project, 90 to 100 students conducted surveys and tracked bird window collisions on UNC Charlotte’s campus. Due to that work, multiple bird friendly windows were installed and there has been a decrease in fatal bird collisions on campus. “I felt a lot of impact and satisfaction from that project,” Partridge said. “And part of that was because I got to see my students become successful.”
When asked about choosing to work with Audubon, Hannah shared that Audubon is an organization she has always appreciated and respected. “They do a great job of engaging the community. And as a scientist myself, I appreciate that a lot of their actions are backed by science,” she said. During her time as Community Action Manager, Hannah hopes to aid university and community chapters, assist with research, and discover trending patterns that will benefit all chapters to serve birds better.
Visit Audubon On Campus for more information about the program.
