In 2018, Margaret Mackinlay graduated from Colorado College with a degree in Organismal Biology and Ecology and a newfound love for ornithology. While she worked an assortment of jobs in the years after, including leading week-long hiking and biking trips in North and South America and interning at Sam Wasser's wolf conservation lab at University of Washington, she returned to studying birds in 2021 as a master's student at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. Her current thesis work focuses on how noise and light pollution impacts bird movement and evolution. After she completes her degree in fall 2023, she plans to continue using her passion for data science and data visualization to learn more about wildlife and advocate for their conservation.