Betsy Mortensen
Communication, Outreach and Education Coordinator
Betsy was hired by the OS in 2022 and serves as UConn’s Sustainability Communications, Outreach, and Education Coordinator. Reporting to the Director, Betsy develops and leads in-person and virtual outreach and engagement events as well as other initiatives for the Office of Sustainability. She is responsible for enhanced visibility of the OS as well as for managing all of its social media, digital, and print communications.
Betsy takes a creative approach to building awareness, engagement and action for the environment. Following an early career stint in wildlife biology surveying songbirds in Connecticut and tracking chimpanzees in Tanzania, she realized that communicating sustainability was her calling (and it involved fewer venomous snake encounters). In 2015 she co-founded nonprofit Sustain Music & Nature, which uses the emotional hook of music and cultural capital of musicians to build support for America’s public lands. Betsy and musician co-founder Harrison Goodale (UConn ’12) produce award winning music videos in partnership with the National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service and US Forest Service. They also run a podcast, Songscapes, which explores Grammy award-winning artists’ relationship to music and nature. It’s hosted by Charles Coplin, former executive producer of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. While building Sustain, Betsy worked in NYC as an assistant to Simon Roosevelt, great-great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. In the Roosevelt tradition, she assisted him with numerous advocacy projects for America’s public lands – working with US Senators, non-profit CEOs, and top philanthropists and entrepreneurs.
Betsy got her B.S. in Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado in 2010 and an M.Phil in Environment, Society and Development from University of Cambridge in the UK in 2011.
| betsy.mortensen@uconn.edu | |
| Phone | (860)-486-5446 |