Dr. Sara Mueller leads the administration and organizational growth and development for the Wildlife Leadership Academy. Sara was appointed as Executive Director of the nonprofit in January of 2023. She also leads curriculum development, implementation, and assessment for all aquatic field schools.  Sara is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University with her B.S. (Schreyer Honors College, 2014), Master’s degree (2016) and Ph.D. (2023) in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences. She has studied many aspects of aquatic ecosystems including the diets of benthic fishes, microhabitat preferences of fishes, aquatic macroinvertebrate communities, environmental DNA (eDNA) of aquatic macroinvertebrates, and physical variation of Brook Trout across Pennsylvania. Sara has taught several undergraduate courses including topics in general biology, animal identification, natural resources policy, and field Ichthyology.

Sara is willing to speak about the Academy, being a woman in science, her various research topics, careers in natural resources, and bring hands-on activities to the classroom such as aquatic macroinvertebrate surveys.

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