Our Team

Our people are integral to our work to ensure thriving and resilient communities and landscapes. The Northern Latitudes Partnership is made up of three regional partnerships, supported by dedicated core staff hosted by Alaska Conservation Foundation and partner organizations. These partnerships are guided by a Steering Committee made up of representatives who work or live in the partnership region. The Steering Committee determines the priorities and work of their partnership, and each core staff member coordinates and supports the partnership’s goals.

Aaron Poe

Alaska Conservation Foundation Vice President of Partnerships

Aaron has worked in Alaska for over 27 years and is focused on building equitable partnerships between agencies, Tribes, Indigenous Organizations, nonprofits, academia, industry, and rural communities that address large-scale conservation and climate adaptation issues. He has worked for Alaska Conservation Foundation since 2018, where he helps provide and direct resources to 3 regional resilience efforts known as the Northern Latitudes Partnerships. He also serves on the Steering Committee for a fourth regional partnership that he helped found in 2024, called the Alaska South Coast Partnership in south central Alaska.  He previously served for 5 years on the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Southeast Partnership and helped fund and launch a local, cold climate food security agriculture program, Alaska Resilience Farms. Prior to coming to ACF, he worked for 21 years in the federal government for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service, where he worked in wildlife biology, natural resource management, bioregional planning, and partnership development. He has B.S. degrees in Fisheries and Wildlife Management and Geography from Utah State University and a Master's in Natural Resource Management from the University of Arizona. He is grateful to have lived on the lands of the Dena’ina people in Anchorage for 27 years and has recently relocated his family to his mom’s birth country of Ireland.

Leanna Heffner

Northwest Boreal Partnership Coordinator

Leanna holds a PhD from University of Rhode Island in Oceanography where she worked with other scientists, coastal managers, and community members to develop solutions to watershed pollution and climate change adaptation. For her post-doctoral work, Leanna was part of an interdisciplinary team of designers, engineers, and scientists at Louisiana State University’s Coastal Sustainability Studio tackling the land loss crisis on the Mississippi River Delta. ​​Upon her arrival in Alaska in 2016, Leanna worked as the Science Communications Coordinator for the Western Alaska Partnership. 

Leanna stepped into her leadership role with the Northwest Boreal Partnership in 2018, and has immensely enjoyed her work. She enjoys hiking, rock climbing, teaching and practicing yoga, and spending time with her husband Larry, two dogs and cats.

Nadine Kochuten

Aleutian & Bering Sea Initiative Coordinator

Nadine Kochuten is Aleut from the community of False Pass in the eastern Aleutian Islands. She is the daughter of Raymond Kochuten of False Pass and Doll Kochuten of King Cove. Nadine grew up commercial salmon fishing with her parents and three sisters in False Pass where they all lived a very subsistence lifestyle. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration Management from the University of Alaska Anchorage and she is a new learner of Unangam Tunuu, the Aleut language. Nadine previously worked as the Environmental Coordinator at Aleut International Association (AIA) from 2019-2024 where she worked directly with Aleut Tribes and communities on their environmental and climate change initiatives locally and internationally. Nadine is passionate about working for the Aleutian and Bering Sea region as it is her family’s home and she is happy to work on projects that support the region and the people that live there. She works closely with the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) working group of the Arctic Council for AIA on biodiversity conservation, working with Arctic Indigenous Peoples' and Indigenous Knowledge as well as projects on community-based monitoring and solid waste management. Nadine was part of the ABSI steering committee from 2019-2024 and looks forward to leading the partnership as its Coordinator.

Harmony Wayner

Western Alaska Landscape Initiative Partnership Coordinator

Harmony is a tribal member of Naknek Native Village, a commercial fisher in the Bristol Bay salmon fleet, and a marine scientist specializing in social-ecological systems to elevate Indigenous values and well-being in fisheries. She holds a Master of Resource Management from the University Centre of the Westfjords in Iceland and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Alaska Southeast. Most recently, Harmony served as an Indigenous Liaison at the International Arctic Research Center. From 2021 to 2023, she was a board member of the Arctic Youth Network and has brought an Arctic Indigenous perspective to global climate and nature forums and now supports a youth mentorship program at the annual Arctic Encounter Symposium, the Northern Vision Fellows. Harmony is excited to support the Northern Latitudes Partnerships and the WALI partnership and projects happening in the region.

Based in Anchorage, Harmony can often be found Nordic skiing the local trails with her dog, Uli, or relaxing with a good book and a cup of tea. Each summer, she returns to Naknek to fish and gather berries with her family.

Rachel Lekanoff

Aleutian & Bering Sea Initiative Research Coordinator

Rachel Lekanoff joined the NLP as the ABSI’s Research Coordinator in 2024. She grew up in Washington state, and made frequent visits to her family in Unalaska, learning about her Unangax̂ culture and heritage. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Science at Western Washington University. Wanting to be closer to her Alaskan family, she moved north to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks and earned an M.S. in Oceanography in 2020. Since getting her master's, Rachel has worked on behalf of the Aleutian Pribilof region on a variety of projects including tribal fisheries co-management, climate resilience, and environmental remediation. She is now also a graduate student at UAF (again!) as a Tamamta fellow pursuing a PhD in Fisheries. Her research interests include genomics as a fisheries monitoring tool for rural Alaska. Academically and professionally, she endeavors to elevate Indigenous Knowledge to develop a more holistic view of the fisheries and marine ecosystems all Alaskans rely on. Outside of work and school, Rachel is an avid cyclist and cross-country skier and is frequently on the incredible trail networks in and around Anchorage.

Grace Ellwanger

Western Alaska Federal Funding Navigator

Grace was born and raised in Northern Michigan and moved to Kodiak in 2020 to pursue her career after studying Environmental Studies and GIS in college. In Kodiak, Grace worked with Tribal partners on environmental monitoring, climate adaptation planning, and programmatic capacity building. 

In 2024 Grace moved with her partner in the Coast Guard to North Carolina, but felt passionate about remaining connected to tribal environmental work in Alaska. She is excited to work as the Western Alaska Federal Funding Navigator housed at Deerstone Consulting in partnership with Igiugig Village Council and the Northern Latitudes Partnerships to continue supporting Alaska’s Tribes. Grace loves to spend her free time with her partner and dog traveling, cooking, gardening, and exploring the outdoors.

Aurora Taylor

Aleutian & Bering Sea Initiative Federal Funding Navigator

Aurora was born and raised in southcentral Alaska where she grew up loving the outdoors and fishing with her family. After receiving her B.S. degree in Environmental Science from Utah State University, she relocated to Southeast Alaska and applied her science background to working for various Tlingit Tribes in Fisheries and Environmental programs, including managing and operating a sockeye subsistence weir, shellfish population mapping, and collecting ocean acidification and paralytic shellfish poisoning data in coastal waters. She joined the Aleutian Bering Sea Initiative partnership in 2025 as their regional Federal Funding Navigator after working for Former U.S. Representative Mary Peltola. Her position is hosted through the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Indigenous Sentinels Network, where she applies her love of technical writing to environmental project needs for rural communities. Aurora continues to work to support Alaskan Tribes from her home in Sitka where she lives with her fiancé and cat Tundra. When not working, Aurora enjoys fishing, experimenting with new recipes, reading, and strong cups of coffee.

Gabe Canfield

University of Alaska Northwest Boreal Partnership Climate Catalyst

Gabe Canfield’s Inupiaq name is Kungunna and she resides in Anchorage and originates from Ketchikan. She is the Climate Adaptation Catalyst at the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center in partnership with the Northwest Boreal Partnership team. When she’s not working, you'll find her fishing, backpacking, hiking, biking, or simply embracing the great outdoors.

Jenna Travers

NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellow

Jenna joined the NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellowship Program in 2025 as an Indigenous Data Sovereignty Fellow. She grew up moving around every few years since her dad was in the Coast Guard, but she was lucky enough to live in Sitka and Juneau for a good part of her childhood and fell in love with Alaska, knowing she’d be back eventually. Her days of tidepooling in Southeast Alaska led her to get a B.S. in Marine Biology at the University of Oregon where she developed an interest in climate communication. Jenna has a M.S. in Marine Resource Management from Oregon State University, where her thesis looked at the media framings and public perceptions of non-native Pacific salmon in the Arctic and South America. During this time, she also worked as a cartographer and GIS tech with the Sandy River Basin Partnership, where she developed methods to share spatial data and created interactive web maps and story maps to share information about salmon restoration with the public.

In her role as a fellow with ACF and the NLP, Jenna works with the Bristol Bay Native Association to help develop data sovereignty agreements with Tribal communities for shared climate data.