Elly Linares

B.S. in Outdoor Education and Environmental Studies, Ithaca College, New York

Elly (she/her/ella) attributes most of her upbringing to the waves, rivers and landscapes of the western coast of the United States. Her love of learning from the natural world has stewarded her approach in educating. She believes that Dragons courses can offer an expansive lens in seeing the world as it is and learning about the world as it could be.

Prior to Dragons, Elly spent over seven years in expeditionary learning within school systems and Outward Bound. She is fascinated by the group process and committed to supportive instruction that enables students to experience and persevere through appropriate challenges. Her time with Dragons has been emboldened by the Apus of the Andes and her life enriched by the buzz of these sacred peaks forever present in her ear. She returns to the work in gratitude, and with deep honor for her Latin American colleagues and the communities we visit. They are the true stewards of the Dragons’ experience. She has been fortunate to lead programs in Bolivia, Perú, Patagonia and Guatemala.

In the U.S., Elly works on grants that disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline through integrating restorative and transformative justice systems in public schools. She is an aspiring Master of Social Work student and hopes to continue her advocacy work within schools in the U.S., as well as participate in collaborative cross-cultural social work research throughout the Americas.
When not working, Elly can be found far away from phone service on an adventure with friends, traveling slowly through the world on her bicycle, sipping lots of coffee, and staying as wild as possible.