Kelli Cody Brookins is a graduate of Valdosta State University with a degree in environmental geosciences and a minor in geography. She has ten years of environmental, outdoor, and agricultural based education experience. From 2012-2013, Kelli was an agro-forestry Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, Africa. She now works as the University of Georgia 4-H Youth Development agent in Columbia County, Georgia. She helps to direct and lead programming that reaches nearly 3,000 students monthly. Some of the program areas she enjoys focusing on are environmental education, STEM, healthy living, government, and community service engagement. Her dad exposed her to astronomy and the earth sciences at a young age. This strongly influenced her love for the Earth and for space exploration.In her spare time she enjoys reading books by Carl Sagan, hiking, kayaking, and singing opera.