Ashli Blow

Environment & Public Health Correspondent

Ashli Blow is Lookout’s Environment and Public Health Correspondent.

With 12 years of experience in journalism and science writing, she looks at the intersection of the issues that affect everyone who lives, works, and connects with the lands around us — whether private or public, developed or forested. She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy from the University of Washington, where she learned how to apply data science to questions about climate adaptation, industrial pollution and wildland fire management.

Based in the Pacific Northwest for more than a decade, Ashli spent plenty of time in the weeds — not just in policy but also on the ground. Her fieldwork took her from recovering timber towns in the Cascade Mountains to coastal communities on the Olympic Peninsula grappling with invasive species. But whether she’s digging into legislative details or literally wading through wetlands, she prioritizes the voices of those most affected by changes in our environment and health.

Ashli hails from Memphis, Tennessee, and recently settled in the Willamette Valley with her partner. The community made her feel at home, just as it has for so many others searching for a place to belong — something her lifelong hero, Dolly Parton, captured perfectly in a song about this place: “Eugene, Oregon, you were kind. The love you gave was genuine … to a homesick country girl a long, long way from Tennessee.”

Outside of the newsroom, Ashli spends much of her time outdoors with her partner and dogs. You can probably find them running laps at Mount Pisgah.