For Wills Curley, living across the street from Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pennsylvania, for several years during childhood provided an early connection to the Stroud Center and White Clay Creek. “From ages 8 to 12, I would often swim, play, and explore this area, and those experiences stayed with me after I moved out from Avondale and grew older,” he says.
After first volunteering and then moving into a part-time role over the last three years, Curley says he is ecstatic to join the Stroud Center full-time as the watershed restoration project coordinator.
“Overall, my main goal,” he says, “is to continue to help improve stream and habitat health and contribute to integral restoration efforts in Pennsylvania. I am excited to continue to learn and develop knowledge and skills in the areas of agricultural best management practices, restoration techniques, and plant identification. The Stroud Center provides a unique platform for research, education, and watershed restoration that I really enjoy being a part of.”
So far, Curley has enjoyed spending time on campus maintaining and planting the arboretum and surrounding forest: “It provides a great deal of fulfillment and satisfaction knowing that I can give back to a small creek and watershed that impacted me early on in my life.”
Curley spent most of his life living in Chester County and attended Malvern Prep for middle and high school. His undergraduate career was spent at Brown University, where he played lacrosse and studied business, entrepreneurship, and organizations. He graduated in 2014. Notably, it was a semester abroad that cemented his passion for nature and wildlife back home. Attending the National Outdoor Leadership School, he spent 75 days canoeing and hiking The Kimberley, Australia’s rugged and desolate northwestern region. “It was a mix of extremes. Half of the trip was filled with heavy rains and flooding due to a monsoon off the coast while the latter half was unrelentingly hot and dry,” he recalls.
Last August, he completed his Master of Public Health, with a focus on the environment, from West Chester University.
In his free time, Curley enjoys golfing, fishing, cooking, and reading mostly thriller and horror fiction. His favorite book this year: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. When asked why, he replies, “Great cast of morally gray characters you don’t want to root for but do.”
