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Rachel grew up in upstate New York and has since had the privilege of exploring mountains and other wild places near and far from home. Rachel graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. As an undergrad she counted seedlings in New Hampshire’s forests, led teenagers in felling trees and building bridges on the trails of New England, and spent many hours working in Cornell’s herbarium, collecting, preparing, and digitizing specimens. Since graduation, Rachel has assisted in research efforts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire focused on water quality and plant phenology and been a land manager for conservation easements in the Adirondacks. She has also collaborated with the National Phenology Network and is highly interested in citizen science and optimizing land management practices for increased resiliency in the face of climate change. Outside of work and school, Rachel enjoys exploring the outdoors by foot, ski, or boat and foraging for fungi.

Growing up in the Midwest, Lucy often found the places she traveled, like the Boundary Waters and Rockies, far more exciting. However, when she wandered into a prairie with a botanist while attending Grinnell College, the vast plant diversity made it just as fascinating as those far-off places. Understanding plants opened the door to her deep appreciation of ecosystems and began her interest in ecological restoration and land management. She continued her path in restoration while in both Minnesota and Massachusetts, branching out to wetlands, forests, and riparian habitats. Her interest in the intersection of ecological health and agriculture culminated in farming for a year at an organic community farm, where she saw firsthand that people are seeking a connection to land. Whether as a restoration practitioner, farmer, or environmental educator, she is always searching to learn something new. Lucy's favorite time of year is spring ephemeral season, and when she is not out hiking or in search of the next swimming hole, she is often joyfully cooking a labor-intensive meal and listening to a book.

Robert is a magazine writer and field botanist from the Missouri Ozarks. After being fired from a hometown job waiting tables, he decided to become a long-haul trucker, a confused tangent that became a feature story for Esquire. Throughout his 20s, he oscillated between stints in freelance writing – publishing stories with National Geographic, The Nation, and New York Times Opinion – and conservation work, which has included field botany in the Northern Rockies and the Ozarks. Much of his natural resource work is informed by fire, either on a hotshot wildland firefighting crew in northern California or running prescribed fire crews in Missouri. A throughline of his work has been a deep love for Ozark flora and the written word. Two of his reporting projects have taken him to the war in Ukraine, one of which was nominated, weirdly, for Best American Sports Writing 2017. Entering the Field Naturalist Program, Robert has managed to delay the choice between a writing career and a botany career even further.

Before moving to Vermont, Veronica grew trees for the City of Philadelphia, aiding in the effort to grow and restore the native tree canopy in the city's watershed parklands. She is currently expanding on her ability to support urban environmental stewardship through the Field Naturalist Program. She has a background in architecture, which stems from a general desire to make sense of the physical world and informs her understanding of human impacts within it. Her environmental design work has been published in Powering Places, an outlet of the Land Art Generator Initiative. She is or has been a craftsperson, a draftsperson, a bartender, a boutique chicken accessory seamstress, a person who can't whistle, and a radio DJ.

Steve was born and raised in Florida, where he spent his youth exploring longleaf pine forests and coastal sand dunes before studying psychology at the University of Miami. After graduating, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer, connecting deeply to the land and people of Kyrgyzstan while living and working in the Tien Shan Mountains. He then moved to California and worked as an outdoor guide, trail access coordinator, and land steward. He left the comforts of the Redwood Forest and enrolled in the Field Naturalist Program to deepen his understanding of the natural world and to explore ways to promote a stronger connection to nature in all people. Steve enjoys running, green tea, bananas, and peanut butter.

Growing up on the Jersey Shore, Alyssa spent many days soaking up the sun and wading through ocean water looking for marine critters. Her original interest lay in marine science, but as she grew and ventured into the woodlands of her home state she found herself drawn to the forests. Since graduating from Rowan University with a B.S. in Geographic Information Science and minors in Environmental Studies and Art, Alyssa has followed the call of the forest. She’s lived and worked in New England since finishing her undergraduate studies, first working with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), where her affinity for field science and the natural world only expanded. She reveled in getting to tramp around the woods everyday, conducting plant diversity surveys and trapping small mammals, affectionately known as “smammals.” After her time with NEON, she put both her forest science and geospatial analysis skills to work as a GIS and Forest Science analyst with Wildlife Works, right here in Burlington. Alyssa is delighted to continue to call Vermont home where in her off time you may find her snowboarding at Smuggs, paddleboarding on Lake Champlain, or rollerblading down the bike path.