Madeline (Maddie) Feaster

Maddie is a Long Islander, where her love of the water and aquatic organisms was born. Maddie enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard for 5 years sailing the Bering Sea and conducting search and rescue missions along the East Coast. After serving, Maddie became a NYS certified educator and also has a graduate degree in environmental policy from Pace University. She has previously worked at Friends of the San Juans in Washington State, where she performed a regulatory review for unpermitted armor to improve shoreline management and protect the critical habitats of forage fish, Chinook salmon, and Southern Resident killer whales.

Maddie previously served as the Legislative Advocacy Intern for Riverkeeper and her connection to the Hudson River was established. Following this experience, she went on to investigate the importance of dam removal in the Hudson River Estuary to restore critical habitat for native and migratory fish for her final capstone project. She has also worked at Scenic Hudson, Inc. as a community organizer to promote public engagement and advance environmental policy initiatives across the Hudson Valley. Returning to Riverkeeper as Habitat Restoration Project Manager, she is excited to restore habitat and help aquatic organisms. When Maddie is not focusing on habitat restoration, she can be found working with horses at Warrior Ranch Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to healing horses and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress (PTS).