Beiwen "Bain" Zhang

Master of Forestry candidate specializing in sustainable ecotourism and conservation planning. Leverages field research and visitor-use management experience to design and implement low-impact tourism strategies, demonstrating a strong ability to enhance conservation efforts through collaborative program execution and effective stakeholder engagement.

• Turtle Live Talks, Waikiki Aquarium (Sea Turtles 911), 09/01/21, Co-delivered a public talk on Hawaiian green sea turtle ecology, status, and conservation.
• Internship Q&A Interview & Education Outreach Project, Sea Turtles 911, 01/01/21, Produced social-media content and coordinated with campus organizations to amplify conservation messaging.

• Graduate Teaching Assistant, OSU (Crop & Soil Science; Sustainability), 01/01/23 - 01/01/24, SLE instructor contribution scores of 4.8/6 and 5/6. Collaborated with faculty on learning objectives, graded with constructive feedback, held office hours, and served as lab instructor for environmental science and sustainability courses (SUS 102, SUS 304).
• Fish & Wildlife Management Merit Badge Counselor, Teaching Intern (BI 213), 01/01/20, 01/01/22, Built lesson plans and hands-on activities, including a human–wildlife case-study debate and a habitat-improvement build for K–12 participants; supported a college biology lab on rain-shadow effects and ecological competition.

• Graduate Project Assistant, Institute for Water and Watersheds (IWW), OSU, 03/01/26, Lake Abert, OR, Developing a conservation-focused ecotourism trip plan for Lake Abert to help IWW guide ecotourism professionals and regional stakeholders toward low-impact, sustainable visitation. Built the plan’s analytical framework integrating the 3Cs of ecotourism (conservation education, conservation support, community involvement), the 5A tourism management framework, and a Visitor Use Management (VUM) approach with indicators and thresholds. Designed seasonal itineraries — 3–5 day peak-migration trips and 1–2 day off-season visits — to redistribute visitor flow from Oregon’s overvisited hotspots while protecting a saline-lake shorebird habitat in ~90% decline. Drafting visitor activities, interpretive/education themes, and carrying-capacity considerations differentiated by season and by visitor group (birdwatchers, hikers, pass-through travelers, local residents).
• Capstone Researcher, “Beyond Greenwashing”, OSU College of Forestry, 01/01/25 - 01/01/26, Comparative case study of ecotourism marketing across five Oregon organizations. Designed and conducted a comparative case study of how five organization types — an environmental NGO, the state DMO, two regional DMOs, and a private agritourism business — align marketing with the Three Cs of authentic ecotourism. Framed the work around Oregon’s overtourism challenge using visitor-spending and resident-sentiment data, finding that an organization’s structural relationship to a destination determines which pillar it can credibly deliver. Distilled three practitioner lessons, including that third-party certification is the clearest defense against greenwashing.