So Sinopoulos-Lloyd (they/them) is a white queer & trans Greek-American nature geek, in(ter)dependent scholar & writer. A first-generation U.S. citizen on their mother’s side, they grew up in the northern hardwood forests of Alnobak territory (a.k.a. central Vermont) as well as Athens, Greece. Inspired by the deep, multifaceted, and often dismissed or mischaracterized connection to sheep in Greek, Balkan, and SWANA culture in general, So worked as a seasonal shepherd throughout college and considers their life path(s) to be deeply inspired by the resilience and tenderness of cloven-hooved beings, who inspired them to study the earth more closely.

A ‘convert’ to the sciences, currently So is working on a Master’s of Science in Anthrozoology. Their focus is on helping establish the nearly non-existent field of comparative cognition of spoor and trackways awareness. They currently focus on animal behavior and cognitive & sensory ecology with respect to visual pattern recognition. Prime animals of interest are humans and ravens. This website deals a little more with their humanities and philosophy based-work, but does contain a fair amount of writing on tracking. ;)

The soul of their work is animated by confluences of ecology, identity, mysticism, & so-called apocalypse. So holds both a BA in Religious Studies and Animal Science from the University of Vermont and an MA from Claremont Graduate University, where they focused most of their studies on Eastern Christianities & Ancient Greek language from perspectives of queer and (crypto)animistic fugitivity from empire & its processes. Their thesis was about depictions of Mary in Late Antique Byzantine iconography, & they maintain an abiding interest in Mary as a site of resistance, refuge, and Soul—essentially, an apokalyptic figure—amidst the horrors of many imperial, colonial, globalizing, processes and collapse events.

So’s interest in semiotics, iconicity, and physical as well as ideological wayfinding—which has long found a home in the study of religion/refuge & religious art—also finds expression in their engagement with wildlife tracking and naturalist studies generally. So has been consciously studying tracking for over ten years. So is certified at the Specialist level for Track & Sign identification through Cybertracker, an international conservation organization. They work with the Community Wildlife Monitoring Project on the I-90 corridor, one of the country’s longest running community science projects that focuses on collecting track-based data.

So has had their writing published in The Wayfarer, Written River, Loam, and elsewhere. Since 2015, they have run Queer Nature with their spouse Pinar—a project part education and part performance art/social sculpture—which envisions and practices place-based skills as initiatory practice & refuge for trans & queer people. Their special interests are wildlife tracking, dogs, shepherding, being a spouse to their beloved, practicing “survival skills,” emergency medicine, and trying to find socially responsible ways to info-dump.

You can view So’s Academia.edu profile, which has some additional published and unpublished materials they’ve worked on, here.