Meet our 2026 Seasonal Staff
We’re thrilled to introduce our 2026 Seasonal Staff!
Elan, Abigail, and Kort will be joining us throughout the summer and fall to support our Riverscape Restoration and Communications & Outreach efforts.
Elan Powless, Kort Maeda, and Abigail Tello join the Sageland staff for the 2026 field season. Photo by Sierra Hastings.
From monitoring our restoration sites to determine ecosystem health to engaging with our communities at outreach events and crafting compelling communications, our seasonal staff are vital to achieving our ambitious goals for wildlife conservation and community engagement.
Get to know Elan, Abigail, and Kort below!
Elan Powless (he/him)
Riverscape Restoration Technician
Elan joined Sageland Collaborative in 2026 as a Riverscape Restoration Technician and is a recent graduate from the University of Utah with a BS degree in Environmental Science and Sustainability Studies. As a Minnesota native, water has always been an important and prominent part of his life. Since moving to Utah for school in 2021, Elan have developed a deep appreciation for the diversity of landscapes and ecosystems here, which has resulted in a strong desire to conserve. In his free time, Elan enjoys spending time outside hiking, climbing, and fly fishing.
During his time as the Riverscape Restoration Technician with the Sageland Collaborative, Elan is excited to learn more about the science behind low-tech process-based restoration strategies, and how they can be used to restore riparian habitat and support hydrological processes in degraded stream networks. He also looks forward to learning about the logistical practices involved with restoration project management, as well as expanding his network and exploring new places throughout Northern Utah!
Abigail Tello (she/her)
Communications & Outreach Intern
Abigail is Sageland Collaborative’s 2026 Communications & Outreach Intern. She is entering her final year of undergraduate at the University of Utah for Urban Ecology and Political Science. Throughout her college career she has had an emphasis on community engagement, taking part in extracurriculars that lead her to connect with people in any environment. Abigail believes in being the product of your environment, and that’s what motivates her to understand how people, systems and the world works. She has always had a love for travel and exploring new places, even taking adventures as far as China!
Abigail can’t wait to work with such a supportive team to fuse creative and impactful work with various communities. She looks forward to working with the team and learning the science involved in conservation work.
Kort Maeda (she/her)
Riverscape Restoration Intern
Kort is an interdisciplinary designer and Master’s student in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, originally from Southern California. Her work focuses on climate resilient design, environmental justice, and community-led design processes. She holds a BDes in Visual Communication Design and BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Washington.
As the Riverscape Restoration Ecology Intern, she is excited to explore the design and planning behind process-based restoration projects. Kort hopes to further learn how to integrate both community-led and science-based approaches into watershed scale environmental planning. Across every landscape, she can be found mountain biking, backpacking, climbing, and experimenting with film photography.
We’re excited to see what our seasonal staff accomplish this year! Stay up to date on what we’re working on and how you can get involved with Sageland Collaborative by following along on our program newsletters, social media, and our events calendar!
Article by Sierra Hastings