Freya Liu.
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I grew up in Tianjin, a coastal metropolis in China and immigrated to the US for graduate school. I went to the University of Georgia for my PhD in psychology, specializing in neuroscience and behavior. During my doctoral study, I studied wild capuchin monkeys in Piaui, Brazil and their percussive tool use behavior, social interactions of gorillas in Zoo Atlanta, and other projects with young children and college undergraduates. I also travelled to Great Britain and Japan for academic conferences and study and collaborated with researchers from Italy and Brazil. After graduation, I worked as a tenure track professor in UNC Pembroke and SUNY Oswego in the psychology department, teaching Physiological Foundations of Behavior, Animal Cognition, Developmental Psychology and Research Methods. Then I had my first-born and everything changed. Becoming a mother was a life-transforming and empowering experience full of wonder, love and introspection. After our family moved to Seattle, I changed my career trajectory and decided to focus on my two young children who are growing up so fast. Thanks to the mild climate and open-mindedness among Seattle parents, we have outdoor preschool here and my children both went to outdoor preschool and we all loved it. So building a school that provides outdoor education to school-age children and teenagers becomes a vision as my children grow up. Being outdoors is so natural and healing for all of us, not to mention all the benefits from improved cognition to calmed emotions to better health. Yet school age kids spend most of their time indoors, we all need more nature therapy. I am grateful to have met Storm who shares the same vision on outdoor education and a passion for providing more outdoor programs to school age children.