If her past lives as a field assistant studying colonial nesting seabirds in Alaska, a restoration ecologist in Wisconsin and New York City and a landscape architect student in Philadelphia have taught her anything, it’s that whichever way nature goes, so goes Rebecca. Her vision for the bigger picture is what makes our landscapes hum with life (those are her bashfully poetic words), and it’s in large part thanks to the pins on her map.

Reading the land and uncovering the wider benefit is her locus for every project, whether it’s a meadow, a shoreline or her city block. The best work is the work that serves the community: Catch her in her favorite vacation spot—her front stoop—with the sun shining, the beer chilling and the conversation buzzing, and it’s tough to argue anything else.