Jenn Wallace

Jenn is the Lead Educator for the TurtleRoom (tTR) and is working on developing a new educational program for tTR. She has been an environmental educator for over 10 years and enjoys working with all audiences. Jenn is also a part of the team on tTR’s Pennsylvania Wood Turtle Monitoring project and has been since she met Andy Weber in the summer of 2017, at a freshwater turtle workshop he was giving in Ohio.

Since she was a little girl she has always been drawn to turtles. All of her friends and family call her the “turtle girl.” She has a passion for conservation and enjoys educating others about the importance of turtles and why people should care about them. Jenn even started a tradition of hosting an event at her most recent job called “turtle celebration.”

Jenn attended Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio and received her Associate’s degree in Natural and Historical Interpretation. She has worked as an Interpretive Naturalist at a few different parks in Ohio and also was an Environmental Educator for the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

She is currently studying to become an Intervention Specialist and earn her Bachelor’s degree from Muskingum University. Jenn is working towards this path because she also enjoys working with individuals with disabilities. She works with her physically and mentally handicapped aunt regularly and enjoys every moment with her. Jenn also stays busy nannying for two boys on a weekly basis. When she isn’t working, she spends time with her boyfriend in Lynx, Ohio on a 27-acre property doing homestead projects such as gardening, making herbal medicine, and creating wildlife habitats.

Jenn enjoys traveling and has been a volunteer in Costa Rica twice, working with green and leatherback sea turtles. Whenever visiting new places she always finds something in nature or turtle-themed to do. Her current pets include Winkston, the one-eyed kitty, MeShell the Testudo (Agrionemys) horsfieldii (Russian Tortoise), an African Pygmy Hedgehog, and her five rescue aquatic turtles – Trachemys scripta elegans (Red-Eared Slider), Trachemys scripta scripta (Yellow-Bellied Slider), Chrysemys picta marginata (Midland Painted), Pseudemys peninsularis (Peninsula Cooter) and Graptemys ouachitensis (Ouachita Map Turtle).