Erica Cirino is a freelance science writer and artist based in New York. Her writing appears in publications such as Scientific American, Audubon, Living Bird, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Center for Humans and Nature’s City Creatures blog, Nautilus Magazine and Undark Magazine. She’s been recognized twice (2010 and 2014) by Photographer’s Forum for excellence in photography, and in 2008 had a multimedia sculpture featured in Long Island’s Best Young Artists exhibition at the Heckscher Museum of Art.

As an artist, Erica creates works focused on ecological subject matter, using various media—such as photography, ink, paper and paint—to depict the colors, textures and emotions found in nature. She is especially interested in exploring the human connection to wild creatures, most often using collage.

One of Erica’s major inspirations is her role as a licensed wildlife rehabber, helping to nurse countless birds, mammals and reptiles back to health for their eventual release back into nature. To gain a better understanding of the animals she depicts in her writing and art, Erica is constantly embarking on adventures, embedding herself in wildlife habitats all across the world. She’s backpacked across New Mexico looking for wolves, cruised through the Puget Sound in search of orcas and sailed across the Pacific Ocean seeking albatross, whales and dolphins.

Through her writing, art and wildlife rehabilitation work, Erica hopes to foster human thought, conversation and, perhaps, admiration for the natural world.