Clemson Institute for Parks honors leaders in conservation and stewardship

Jim Sibthorp, Ph.D., began his career as an outdoor educator, teaching scuba diving and boating safety for marine biology and geology programs. His students often described transformational experiences related to group dynamics and personal growth rather than just academic content. This inspired him to explore personal and group development in outdoor settings, leading to his Ph.D. at Indiana University. Currently, Sibthorp is a professor in the College of Health at the University of Utah where he directs the Outdoor Education and Youth Development Lab. He teaches courses on research design, experiential education and youth programming. Mentoring graduate students is one of the most rewarding aspects of his work and he has supervised 18 Ph.D. students and 32 M.S. students. His research focuses on the outcomes and processes of outdoor education and summer camps, often in partnership with the American Camp Association (ACA) and National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). A recent five-year project with ACA examined the impact of summer camp, leading to initiatives that enhance access and cultural responsiveness in youth programs. His current projects aim to integrate outdoor education with formal schooling and address cultural variations in international program operations. Sibthorp emphasizes the importance of funding and collaboration in quality research. His lab has received support from the Spencer Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and others. He prioritizes bridging research and practice, ensuring that findings are applicable in real-world settings, as evidenced by his experiences with teens outdoors. He co-authored Outdoor Adventure Education: Foundations, Theory, and Research and serves on editorial boards for professional journals. He is a Fellow of The Academy of Leisure Sciences and has been recognized by the Association for Experiential Education and the American Camp Association for his contributions to education and research.

Michael Mengak, Ph.D., was born in Northeastern, Pennsylvania, and earned his bachelor’s degree in forestry and wildlife management from Virginia Tech University before completing his master’s degree and Ph.D. in forestry and wildlife management at Clemson University. Mengak recently retired as the wildlife outreach specialist for D. B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia (UGA). He has served as an assistant professor, associate professor, professor and associate dean for outreach at UGA since he started in 2001. Mengak, a Certified Wildlife Biologist® and TWS Fellow, has been active in The Wildlife Society over the years, serving as past-president of the southeastern section and on various committees, including the National Wild Pig Task Force. He was state coordinator for the Georgia Master Naturalist Program from 2003 to 2023 and director of the Piedmont-South Atlantic Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit from 2014 to 2019. He taught courses in wildlife damage management and non-game and endangered species management. Mengak’s research focused on invasive wild pigs, nuisance wildlife and non-game species. He has published two books, 13 book chapters, 55 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous extension publications. He has given over 140 presentations and generated $3.72 million in grants. Since 2006, he has received 16 awards for excellence in outreach and extension programming.

Christopher W. Abbett is the National Park Service’s (NPS) associate regional director for partnerships, lands, interpretation and planning in the South Atlantic Gulf. He has been a member of the NPS regional directorate for the past 10 years. After college in the summer of 1986, Abbett worked at Glacier National Park where he fell in love with the NPS, leading him to pursue a career with the agency. Throughout his 35-year federal career, Abbett has dedicated himself to the NPS, primarily in the Southeast region. He has taken on various roles, including a 6-month detail as acting superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site and a 4-month detail with FEMA, assisting communities in Southern Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. At the NPS, Abbett has focused on partnerships and collaborations with non-profits, universities and businesses. He is particularly proud of his efforts to protect Civil Rights sites across the Southeast, including acquiring Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth home and family home in Atlanta; establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Chicago; expanding the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail visitor center; and supporting new NPS Civil Rights units like Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and Freedom Riders National Monument. In the early part of his career, Abbett helped communities develop local parks and recreation initiatives, contributing to projects such as the Chattanooga Riverwalk, Florida Greenways Program and various rail-trails across the region. Abbett holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Georgia State University and a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources Management with a focus on wildlife management from the University of Georgia.

Theresa Coble, Ph.D., is the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Experiential and Family Education at the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL). In May 2023, she was appointed by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to the National Park System Advisory Board and currently co-chairs the Committee on Recognizing Women’s History in response to President Biden’s Executive Order (EO 14121). Coble has collaborated extensively with the National Park Service, leading research in over 25 national parks, co-developing an online master’s degree in resource interpretation and serving on the NPS Advisory Board Education Committee. She has secured over $2 million in grants, partnering with organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Her work appears in several journals, including the Journal of Interpretation Research and the Journal of Leisure Research. Her research interests include meaning-making at heritage sites, engaging audiences with complex topics and exploring trauma-informed heritage practices. Before joining UMSL, Coble was a professor at West Virginia University and Stephen F. Austin State University with a focus on training in interpretation, education and natural resource management. At UMSL, she leads an online doctoral cohort and teaches undergraduate courses in interpretation and social entrepreneurship. In 2017, she gave a TEDxStLouis talk on grieving difficult history. Coble was a Fulbright Fellow at Taiwan Normal University in 2010 and is currently a Fellow of the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), where she served on the board from 2011 to 2019. In St. Louis, she is involved with the Jefferson National Park Association and St. Louis Zoo education committee. Coble earned a master’s degree in Chinese and Ph.D. in forest resources from the University of Minnesota. After completing her biology degree, she spent summers as a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and taught English in China for four years.

William W. Gwaltney is a seventh-generation native of Washington, D.C. He attended Gonzaga High School and John Carroll High School before earning degrees from Marietta College and the University of Maryland at College Park. Gwaltney also worked at the Goshen Scout Reservation in Virginia. He began his National Park Service (NPS) career on the National Mall – later serving at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia, Bent’s Old Fort in Colorado and Fort Davis in Texas. He became chief ranger at Bent’s Old Fort, site manager at Frederick Douglass National Historic Site and superintendent at Booker T. Washington National Monument. As a co-founder of Company B of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, he was featured in the 1989 film Glory as an extra and technical assistant. He also worked as an interpretive specialist in the NPS regional offices in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gwaltney has training as a federal police officer, wildland firefighter, emergency medical technician and search and rescue ranger. He served as chief naturalist at Rocky Mountain National Park, where he authored the first Wilderness Education and Partnership Plan for the NPS. Later, he became assistant regional director for workforce enhancement in the intermountain region, developing programs to recruit and retain Americans of color as park rangers. After serving as the NPS staff liaison to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he was loaned to the Smithsonian as guest curator for military history where he created a prominent exhibit. Now retired, Gwaltney continues to volunteer for the NPS, crediting former NPS director Robert G. Stanton for his career successes.

Kyle Maurice Woosnam, Ph.D., is a professor of parks, recreation and tourism management in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia (UGA). Before joining UGA, he served as an assistant and associate professor of recreation, park and tourism sciences at Texas A&M University from 2008 to 2016. He currently holds positions as senior research fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in South Africa and visiting professor at the Sustainable Tourism Impact Lab at Taylor’s University in Malaysia. Woosnam earned a bachelor’s degree in leisure studies from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree in forestry and forest products from Virginia Tech University and a doctoral degree in parks, recreation and tourism management from Clemson University. His research focuses on social and environmental changes influenced by external factors, such as natural hazards and visitors, and internal dynamics, including residents and governing bodies. He has conducted research in 33 countries, emphasizing international destinations. Woosnam has graduated 54 master’s students and 25 Ph.D. students and currently oversees five master’s students and 10 Ph.D. students. Throughout his career, Woosnam has published 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, 17 book chapters and three edited books. He has delivered over 175 conference presentations in 26 countries and secured more than $2 million in grants to support his research. In addition to his research, he teaches courses in community tourism, cultural heritage tourism, social impacts of tourism, research methods and protected areas management. He directs the Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in University Teaching at UGA and has received 15 teaching awards and 12 research awards.