About Heather Physioc

Heather Physioc is an award-winning conservation journalist, outdoor travel writer and wildlife photographer based in Kansas City. Her field-driven reporting explores species recovery, habitat protection, human-wildlife coexistence and Indigenous and community-led stewardship. Her work has taken readers from the recovery of the critically endangered Bali starling in Indonesia for Mongabay to Alaska’s first wildlife overpasses for Sierra, with additional work appearing in Missouri Life and Bird Conservation Magazine. Through writing and photography, she brings scientific and policy questions down to earth by showing how people, wildlife and wild places shape one another.

Physioc’s outdoor storytelling spans hiking, backpacking, birding, road trips, solo female travel and close observation of landscapes and wildlife across the United States and around the world. A multiple-award-winning member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, she also creates free wildlife education resources for children and donates half the earnings from her fine-art photography to environmental and conservation organizations.

Alongside her journalism, she is a globally recognized discoverability leader and keynote speaker. She draws on more than two decades in search and digital strategy to help important stories reach the audiences who need them, and now, helping people navigate AI transformation.