Our Team

Madeleine Moon-Chun is a high school birder from Georgia. She was one of two recipients of the Richard Parks Young Birders' Scholarship in 2023 and the only one in 2025. She is the editor for the GOShawk—the Georgia Ornithological Society's quarterly newsletter—and the president of her school's Bird Club. Her poetry collection Not Made of Lines donates all its proceeds to the Georgia Ornithological Society. She founded Birding for Beauty out of the belief that birding should be an accessible, inclusive activity that melds social justice and conservation.​

Aeiris Asantewa is a freshman at Emory University, interested in studying public health and the environmental sciences. Their artistic work has been recognized by Kentucky’s Governor’s School for the Arts. In their free time, they enjoy traveling, consuming or baking sweets, reading (anything from Nabokov to Murakami), and otherwise being silly. 

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She has written for Jordan.

Adelina Mbise is a 17-year old birder and currently lives in Piedmont, CA. Recently, Adelina participated in an exchange program funded by the State department to study abroad in Jordan for ten months. There, she got to observe many Jordanian birds and created  a capstone project showcasing photographs of Jordanian birds and information about birds in the region. She presented this project to her host family, school, and US embassy. In California, she is a member of the California young birders club and works with the Bluebird Recovery program to build and install 10 nestboxes for Western bluebirds. 

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Adelina loves birding and believes in the power of outreach to educate people about the importance of birds and conservation efforts as a means of protecting birds and their habitats.  

She has written for the United States, Jordan, and Madagascar.
 

Lillian is currently based in Durham, but she enjoys exploring all around North Carolina. She believes variance in terrain, from mountains to coast to piedmont, makes it such a special place to live.  She loves trail running, journaling, studying outdoors, and noting all the little unique things that make a site memorable.

She has written for the United States.
 

Penelope Tong is a seventeen-year-old boarding school birder from Connecticut. She has a parrot named Bandit and is the only student caretaker of the animals at her school. She was an intern at the Greenwich Audubon this past summer, where she helped with a major invasive plant removal project.

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She has written for the United States and Barbados.

Beatrice Pritchard is a young birder from Atlanta. She has competed in the Georgia Youth Birding Competition for thirteen years and her team has won the championship trophy twice. She co-founded and co-leads her high school’s Nature Club, which gets students outside through outings to banding stations, overnight camping trips, and more. Additionally, Beatrice helped to design and implement an outdoors-based summer program for refugee middle schoolers. Beatrice joined the Birding for Beauty team because she believes that the most effective strategy for conservation is fostering a love for nature.

Benjamin Moon-Chun is a young birder from Georgia. His Youth Birding Competition Team placed in 2023, and he is a regular contributor to his school's Backyard Birds daily photography series. He is a dedicated member of his school's Bird Club.

Reuben Shallom started birding at ten after his mom got a camera and began photographing birds. Curious, he began identifying species, reading field guides, and learning about behavior, habitats, and calls. With encouragement from a family friend, he began recording his sightings—and birding became part of who he is. During the pandemic, it gave him purpose and routine. When school or life feels overwhelming, it's the birds that help him reset. Birding has taken him to places he never expected and made him aware of the growing threats birds face. Birding changed his life—what will your wake-up call be?

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He has written for Tanzania.

Chris Dawson is a young birder.

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He has written for the United States.

Laura Coelho is a young birder from Brazil.

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She has written for Brazil.