Olya Milenkaya was the leader of the High Schools Group during the 1999–2000 school year, her senior year at Los Altos High School.

Olya grew up in Novosibirsk, Russia, for her first seven years, until her family immigrated to California. While in high school, she attended the Deep Green Global Training, and then in her senior year she started attending regular Wednesday night Schools Group meetings. They quickly became an important part of her life as she found a circle of like-minded new friends and a supporting organization whose goals and ideals she believed in.

A charismatic and buoyant personality, within weeks she was asked by Amy Hui (Schools Group coordinator) and Sue Nicholls (Schools Group project leader) to become the student leader for the 1999–2000 year.

Olya led Wednesday night meetings in the BAA Mountain view office, where students learned about activism, organizing, and myriad environmental and social issues, and built up the membership by doing regular outreach to other area schools and environmental clubs. The group organized a successful youth environmental conference (Deep Green Global Training), coordinated Earth Day events at their high schools, went on a backpacking trip in northern California, volunteered most weekends, and led a boycott against the Gap, among other activities. Olya is especially proud that she and the other core members nurtured the Schools Group to be self-directed, inclusive, and supportive.

‍Active Schools Group years: 1999–2000

Deep Greens attended: 1998, 1999, 2000

BAA projects and campaigns most active in: Schools Group, Gap Boycott, Arastradero Preserve Stewardship Project

Post BAA

Olya attended Warren Wilson College (WWC)in North Carolina where she participated in environmental activities including the construction of the campus’s first ecodorm. She returned to BAA for a summer as the paid Schools Group Coordinator. She graduated from WWC in 2003 with a BA in Environmental Studies and received her PhD in Biological Sciences from Virginia Tech in 2013.

She then worked as a professor at small liberal arts colleges for over a decade, focused on undergraduate teaching and mentorship in conservation biology, including at her alma mater Warren Wilson.

“I believe in the intrinsic value of biodiversity, and I enjoy the logic of science,” she wrote. “Conservation biology is a science applied to an ethic, and is both theoretical and practical, analytical and emotional. It is steeped in values, urgency, uncertainty, and controversy. In teaching conservation biology at Warren Wilson College, I aim to empower students to develop their own ethic about biodiversity, and to do science that does good in the world.”

Olya is married to herpetologist Lindley McKay, and they spend nearly all their time off traveling the world in search of birds, herps, and wonderful experiences.

Hometown: Palo Alto, CA

Hobbies: Birding, travelling, baking, gardening

Elsewhere: Milenkaya.org‍

Countries visited since BAA:‍

• Ukraine
• Russia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Australia
• Singapore
• Thailand
• Indonesia
• Papua New Guinea
• Malaysia
• Uzbekistan
• Tajikistan
• Kazakhstan
• Mongolia
• Mexico
• Guatemala
• Panama
• Costa Rica
• Colombia
• Brazil
• Bolivia
• Peru

Places lived since BAA:

• ‍‍Swannanoa and Asheville, NC
• Young Harris, GA
• Laredo, TX
• Siberia, Russia
• Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, WA, Australia
• Blacksburg, VA
• Soon to be living in Kuranda, QLD, Australia

Last seen: Chasing little brown birds through the bush