Cheyenne Twilley and the Future of South Carolina’s Coast
By SCDNR Director Tom Mullikin
Long before dawn spills across the salt marshes of the South Carolina Lowcountry, the tide is already at work. It slips quietly through winding creeks, cradles oyster reefs, carries shrimp boats toward open water, and breathes life into one of the richest ecosystems in North America. Along these shores, where spartina grass bends with the wind and brown pelicans glide effortlessly above the surf, conservation is more than a profession. It is a calling.
The world has celebrated ocean champions such as Sylvia Earle and Jacques Cousteau. These are voices that taught generations to see the sea not simply as water, but as wonder. Every place, though, has its own stewards.
Along South Carolina’s coast, one of those voices that now belongs to the world is Cheyenne Twilley. Her story doesn’t begin in a boardroom or behind a podium. It begins with survival.
Since childhood, Twilley has spent much of her life navigating an illness that required years of care in pediatric oncology, an experience that would shape the way she sees the world. She does not view any challenge with fear but always with gratitude. Those who know her speak less about what she endured than about what emerged: a woman whose determination is matched only by her optimism, and whose belief in people is as strong as her love for the coast.
Like a phoenix rising, she transformed hardship into purpose. Today, as Chief of Education, Outreach, and Information for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), Twilley occupies a role that reaches far beyond communications. She serves as a translator between science and everyday life, helping South Carolinians understand that healthy marshes protect homes, thriving estuaries sustain fisheries, and clean beaches are not simply beautiful. These biomes are essential.
Twilley has spent her career building unlikely partnerships. As a coastal resilience planner, she worked alongside scientists, engineers, elected officials, and local communities preparing for rising seas and stronger storms. She founded an international World Ocean Day cleanup that united volunteers at eight coastal sites across three countries, proving that stewardship can begin with something as simple as picking up a piece of litter and grow into a movement.
Twilley’s résumé includes dual master’s degrees from the College of Charleston, her current pursuit of a PhD in coastal health science at the University of South Carolina, and leadership roles advancing coastal conservation nationally. But credentials tell only part of the story. Those who have spend a few minutes with Twilley, have recognized that conversations quickly turn away from titles and toward people: The child discovering a horseshoe crab for the first time. The family learning why oyster reefs matter. The volunteer who arrives for a beach cleanup and leaves with a lifelong commitment to conservation. She understands something every great conservationist eventually learns: that people protect what they come to love.
Perhaps that’s why Twilley feels so at home in South Carolina. This is a state where blackwater rivers still wind through ancient cypress forests, where loggerhead turtles return each summer to nest beneath moonlit skies, and where the rhythm of life is still measured, in many places, by the tides. These landscapes have shaped generations of South Carolinians. They deserve champions who understand both their beauty and their fragility.
Twilley is one of those champions. Her life reminds us that resilience is not simply recovering from hardship. It is choosing, daily, to leave the world better than you found it. Along South Carolina’s coast, where the marsh meets the sea and every sunrise promises renewal, she is helping write the next chapter of coastal conservation. A story rooted not only in science but in hope.
I have known Cheyenne Twilley since she was a freshman at Coastal Carolina University, when she quietly audited one of my doctoral-level courses. It didn’t take long to recognize that she wasn’t there simply to keep up. She was there to excel. Her curiosity, discipline, and uncommon wisdom often surpassed students many years her senior. Watching her grow into one of the world’s great emerging conservation leaders has been less a surprise than the fulfillment of a promise she made to the world long ago.
– Dr. Tom Mullikin is the director of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. An acclaimed global expedition leader, attorney, documentary film producer, former U.S. Army officer and retired commanding general of the S.C. State Guard, Mullikin served as the founding chair of the gubernatorially established S.C. Floodwater Commission. He has led the 1,100-plus employee SCDNR since early 2025.
