​Kelsey Simpkins is a writer, photographer, and artist with a master’s degree in journalism. She works for the University of Colorado Boulder as a science and news writer, and media relations specialist. 

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 Media. 

At the University of Colorado Boulder, she worked as the lead graduate assistant for two years in the Center for Environmental Journalism, focusing on stories about environmental issues, climate change, and a variety of scientific research. She spent the summer of 2017 working in public information for the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., and in the spring of 2018 she was an Editorial Fellow with 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 – which she moderated a panel on at the 2019 Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Memberships
National Association of Science Writers
Phi Beta Kappa

Awards
2018: Arctic Frontiers Conference Travel Grant, Norwegian Royal Embassy 

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