altobello@harriscenter.org
Janet’s love of outdoor living began as a young child in the aromatic white pine/rhododendron forests and blueberry swamps of northeastern Pennsylvania. She declared “outdoor therapy” as her career path at age 18, and has been bringing outdoor therapy to schools for 34 years while teaching science in Fort Morgan, Colorado and Damariscotta, Maine; writing curriculum for the National Geographic Society and the National Gardening Association; teaching at Antioch University New England; and as a Harris Center Naturalist-in-Residence exploring the wild edges of schoolyards in the Monadnock region since 1989. Janet’s favorite places for her own renewal are in the garden, where she experiments with year-round food production; alpine and subalpine ridges; and Muscongus Bay, Maine.
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Laurie BryanExecutive Director
bryan@harriscenter.org
Laurie Bryan has worked at the Harris Center since 1999 and spent most of her life in the Monadnock Region. While living in Hancock, she’s served on local town committees, including two terms on the Hancock Select Board, and brings a deep appreciation of the region’s landscape and understanding of local issues and community engagement to her work at the Harris Center. For 27 years she’s lived with her family on a small farm in Hancock – over this time, the family has produced maple syrup, vegetables, and kept a variety of animals, including highland cattle, horses, goats, chickens, cats, dogs and a lone duck.
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Meade CadotLand Program Director & Senior Naturalist
cadot@harriscenter.org
In 2008 after 33 years, Meade handed the Executive Director reins over to Laurie Bryan and asked for the title “Senior Naturalist— emphasis on the Senior.” He continues to coordinate the Harris Center’s outings and public events and to direct land protection and land management activities.
He served as a faculty member in Antioch University New England’s Environmental Studies Department for 34 years. Lifetime awards include: The Monadnock Conservancy’s Abe Wolf Award; New Hampshire Audubon’s Tudor Richards Award; co-winner of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest’s first Sarah Thorn Award; First to receive N.H. Audubon’s Meade Cadot Award; Antioch’s Horace Mann Award; Antioch’s Community Excellence Award; N.H. Fish and Game’s Ellis Hatch Award; Silver Lake Land Trust’s Stewardship Award; and EPA’s New England Region Lifetime Achievement Award. Meade and his spouse Sandy Taylor live in Hancock.
Joyce Carroll
Communications Specialist
carroll@harriscenter.org
Joyce’s love of the natural world began as a young child growing up in a small Connecticut town. One of seven children, her playtime always included discoveries in the nearby fields, forest and farms. When not at the Harris Center, Joyce can be found working at the Town of Peterborough’s Recreation Department, “playing” in her garden, photographing nature, hiking, or enjoying time with her family. Joyce and her husband Pete recently moved to Peterborough and have two grown daughters.
Born and raised at the foot of Mount Greylock, Jaime has spent her professional life teaching children and working in the outdoors. In addition to her academic training at Union College and Antioch University New England, she has worked with youth at summer camps, a children’s museum, an urban park and recreation nature center, an alternative school, and as a Girl Scout Troop Leader.
When she’s not working for the Harris Center as a Teacher/Naturalist, Jaime is honing her skills by teaching her husband and two children how to identify frog calls, track animals in the snow, and use worms to make compost. As her husband often says, “Of course we have a jar of moose poop on the kitchen table, a stuffed skunk in the trunk, and a frozen bat in the freezer; that’s life with a naturalist!”
Sara LeFebvrelefebvre@harriscenter.org
Eric MastersonLand Protection Specialist
The representative from Ireland on the Harris Center staff, Eric also is the co-chair of the Harris Center ornithology department. When not fielding questions about birds and/or Ireland, Eric is the land protection specialist for the organization, monitoring the 17,000+ acres owned and/or conserved by the Harris Center, and working to push the figure closer to the 20,000 acre mark. He lives with his wife Tricia and dog Andy in Hancock.
Polly PattisonTeacher/Naturalist
When not full-time teaching in the five Keene elementary schools, and the Marlborough and Nelson schools, Polly spends her time rambling through the forests and wetlands of New England (and beyond), marveling at and recording the fauna and flora, while trying to keep her dogs out of trouble.
Susie Spikol Faber spent her youth exploring the wild edges of Brooklyn, New York and roving the rolling green hills of southern Vermont. After one statistics class, she abandoned her childhood dream of becoming a wolf scientist and decided that teaching children in the outdoors was just as exciting as working with a wild pack of canines. After interning as an environmental educator with the Central Park Conservancy and several summer stints with Massachusetts Audubon Society, she wandered upon the Harris Center in 1991 and has never left. (She recognizes a good thing when she sees it!) When not romping around the Harris Center’s Big Woods in search of new additions to add to her scat and sign collection, Susie and her family spend many hours tending to their orchard nestled on the edge of Skatutakee Mountain.
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Jenn comes to the Harris Center after 11 years of teaching in local elementary schools. She has been the director of the Wol’s Nest programs for three years and enjoys hiking and fort building with the kids. When not at the Harris Center you can find Jenn biking, kayaking or spending time with her Golden Retriever, Molly. She also enjoys playing volleyball and softball in Keene with her friends. Although she has a fond appreciation for all things in nature, her favorite animal is the moose!
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Laurel Swope
Teacher/Naturalist
swope@harriscenter.org
Laurel Swope, originally from the farmland and mountains of Pennsylvania, has many loves in life, but few things feed her soul more than dogs, hiking, photography and laughing. She has a deep seeded passion for ecology and education, and loves exploring and learning outdoors. After spending a summer in Teton National Park she is excited to be among the forests and mountains of the Monadnock Region.
Laurel hold an M.Ed. (2011) in Curriculum and Instruction in Biology from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, as well as her teaching certification (2007). Her B.S. (2006) is in Environmental Science and Biology from Westminster College of Pennsylvania.
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Brett Amy Thelen
Program Director
Ashuelot Valley Environmental Observatory (AVEO)
thelen@harriscenter.org
Brett was Science Director of AVEO from 2007-2009, and was delighted to return to the AVEO fold in January 2011. In addition to her work with the Harris Center, Brett teaches Coastal Ecology at Franklin Pierce University and serves on the editorial board of Whole Terrain, Antioch University New England’s nationally-acclaimed journal of environmental writing. She received her M.S. in Environmental Studies: Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England in 2007. Prior to her graduate work, she conducted all manner of ecological field research at Cape Cod National Seashore. She received her B.A. in Literary & Cultural Studies from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.
When not citizen science-ing, Brett can be found roaming the dunes and shores of outer Cape Cod, scratching her way across desert playas, prowling used bookstores, or cooking locally-grown feasts at her home in Keene, NH.