About Me
I am a multidisciplinary applied environmental scientist with 15 years of experience in research, design, implementation and management of food, agriculture, waste and remediation projects. I am the founder and director of D.I.Y. Fungi (since 2012) offering mycological education, consultation, mushroom cultures, and mycoremediation and waste management research in North America and beyond. Danielle is currently a PhD candidate in Environmental Toxicology at University of California, Riverside, where she studies fungi in soil remediation and sustainable agriculture. She is also founder and advisor to the Healing City Soils project, and a board member with CoRenewal and the Association for Women in Science (Riverside). Danielle is passionate about science communication and community science and her collaborative projects bridge fields and disciplines from art, ecology, soil science, policy, toxicology and remediation, not unlike the mycorrhizal fungi she studies which bridge plant communities.
Mission Statement
I do impactful work to address interconnected environmental problems of waste and soil and water pollution, especially where they interact with food systems, ecological systems and community well-being.
Comfortable in the lab, the greenhouse and the field, I am most excited about working on real-contaminated sites and developing applications to address toxic wastes and soil and water pollution in ways that are ecologically regenerative, community-accessible, impactful, and scalable.
I share my knowledge and expertise about soil science, plants, fungi, microbes, ecology, bio-phyto-and myco-remediation and restoration, waste management, agriculture, farming and food systems through offering:
education
consulting, and
collaboration
Values Driven
I value applied scientific approaches that bridge ecological remediation and restoration and engage communities in collaborations involving industry, government, citizens, community organizations and academic institutions.
I work in ways that build local capacity, skills and resources to regenerate healthy soils, waters, landscapes in ways that support economic, physical, and ecological well-being regionally.
My approaches seek to truly address pollution and contamination, and that integrate multiple stages and tools as appropriate, and are generative and responsive to and driven by local needs and objectives.
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“Until now there has been no organized local response to the huge obstacle of heavy-metal contaminants in our urban soil. Kudos to Danielle Stevenson for organizing a neighbourhood approach to soil testing, and setting up DIY Fungi. Mushrooms specific to the contaminant can remove toxins much more effectively than plants can, but making it happen is much trickier. I’m surprised and heartened to read, in Sunday’s op-ed, about someone taking on this daunting task, and I urge readers to support her efforts.”
- Bill Metcalfe, Former chairman of Lifecycles