Ryan Pickerill

PROJECT COYOTE INTERN

Ryan M. Pickerill is a landscape designer and Project Coyote intern from Rockford, Illinois. He is a recent Master of Landscape Architecture graduate from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. Ryan’s thesis project, affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund – Nepal and Dr. Neil H. Carter’s Conservation & Coexistence Lab, involved railway crossing structure design for tigers, rhinos, and elephants in Nepal. During his time in Ann Arbor, he also worked on design projects concerning wolf reintroduction in Colorado and habitat for migratory birds and fish in Detroit.

Watching Steve Irwin and Zoboomafoo at a young age gave Ryan a lifelong passion for wildlife and, as he got older, he looked for ways to apply his creative streak to conservation. He began to experiment with bringing design and science together for rewilding purposes while earning his B.S. in Landscape Architecture from the Ohio State University. Between undergrad and grad school, he worked as a landscape designer at an architecture firm and volunteered as a zoo educator, specializing in venomous snakes, saltwater crocodiles, Tasmanian devils, and wolves. Ryan believes that design can be a powerful tool to encourage coexistence with wildlife and reinvite nature into the landscapes where people live and work. In his role as an intern, Ryan helps with research into connectivity, crossing structures, and coexistence in the Mississippi River Watershed as a part of the Big River Connectivity initiative. When he’s not working, Ryan likes to play hockey, watch horror movies, create theme parks in Planet Coaster, and spend time exploring the outdoors.