Ella Gatfield is an ecologist and writer specializing in coastal and marine habitats. Based between Long Island’s East End and New York City, she studies and writes about the living world, especially salt marshes and estuaries: who’s there, how these places have changed, and how we come to know them. Her work brings ecological research into conversation with local knowledge and creative writing, making complex science vivid and relevant to the places we live.

She spent two years restoring and teaching about coastal and marine habitats with Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program, and led urban ecology programming and co-directed the Food and Farm Hub at Riverdale Neighborhood House in the Bronx.

Ella is an M.A. Dean’s Scholar at NYU Gallatin. Her thesis pairs fish environmental DNA sampling in the Lower Hudson estuary, carried out on Governors Island with Hudson River Park’s River Project, with historical ecology and policy research to trace how the region’s environmental baselines have shifted. With support from the Horn Family Fund for Environmental Research, she spent summer 2026 collecting data on Long Island salt marshes and writing a collection of stories about them.

She writes the newsletter Another Way Home and the monthly column “Field Notes” for The Southampton Press. She holds a First Class Honours degree in Environmental Journalism from the University of the West of England and completed the University of Vermont’s Farmer Training Program, including coursework in soil science and nutrient cycling. When she’s not at a desk, she’s usually in a wetland, cataloging species, tending her garden allotment, or making mixed media artwork.