​Kelsey Simpkins is a writer, photographer and artist with a master’s degree in journalism. She works for Future Earth and Anthropocene magazine as their Digital and Engagement Editor, and freelances in the worlds of art, music, science and the environment.

In 2012, she graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, with a B.A. in art, art history, and environmental studies, and attended the Smith College Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her research focused on the intersection between the environmental and art movements of the 1970's through present day, culminating in a senior solo show, "The End of the World." She is continually interested in the overlap between the environment, the arts, and social movements of past and present. 
 
Her experience in Minneapolis included environmental nonprofit fundraising and communications, and freelance work in the arts and music scene. She has written and photographed for Walker Art Center, Rift Magazine, Sofar Sounds Minneapolis, Bandsintown.com, and Billboard Magazine. She runs her own music blog, The Aural Premonition, and is a staff writer for Indie Shuffle and Bearded Gentlemen Music. 

At the University of Colorado Boulder, she worked for two years in the Center for Environmental Journalism, focusing on stories about environmental issues and scientific research. She spent the summer of 2017 working in public information for the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., and this spring she was an Editorial Fellow with the Nature Conservancy Magazine. 

A result of projects in her graduate career, she continues to report on the intersection of arts, artists and the environment in the Arctic, as well as sustainability policy and practice in regards to legal recreational cannabis cultivation and consumption. 

Memberships
Online News Association
Society of Environmental Journalists
Phi Beta Kappa
[previously: D.C. Science Writers Association​]

Awards
2018: Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant, Martin Graduate Scholarship, University of Colorado Boulder; Arctic Frontiers Travel Grant, Norwegian Royal Embassy 

2017: Art + Environment Conference Educator Scholarship, Nevada Museum of Art; North American Journalist Award, University of Colorado Boulder