| Name |
Biography |
| Joseph Giunta |
Joseph Giunta has led bird walks for the Nature Conservancy and the South Fork Natural History Society and taught a beginning birding course for Summer Fest. He has birded extensively in the U.S., Panama, Belize, Venezuela, and Costa Rica. |
| Carey Russell |
Carey Russell is a naturalist, educator, filmmaker and photographer based in New York City. He holds a master’s degree in forestry with an emphasis in landscape ecology, and is a certified interpretive guide, and a licensed guide and master naturalist in New York State. He has worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, Discover Outdoors, and Khangi Nuruu National Park in Mongolia. Recently, he founded the Dendro Lab, a platform designed to improve the public’s relationship to nature through tree identification, which will include an online course, workshops, and podcast. As a filmmaker, he has been a frequent collaborator with director Terrence Malick (The New World, The Tree of Life); and directed and photographed the documentary series Tibetan Stories. Also a photographer, Russell recently published his first monograph, The New Arcadians, about the formative experiences of youth and nature at summer camp. |
| Valerie Striar |
Valerie Striar has led walking meditation at the Garden since 2014 with the intention of supporting our interconnection and reverence for the earth. Valerie has cultivated a longtime practice of mindfulness meditation and is certified with the Inner Strength Foundation and Inward Bound Mindfulness Education for Teens, iBme. She has completed trainings with Lama Rod Owens, Tara Brach; Jack Kornfield; Mindful Schools (the eight-week MBSR training), Compassion Cultivation Training, created at Stanford University; and yoga and trauma-informed training with The Lineage Project, among others. She has taught yoga in the Iyengar tradition for over 25 years. Valerie is also a performing dance and theater artist and is a master practitioner, facilitator, and advisor with Narrative 4, an international organization that brings people together in story exchanges to foster empathy, understanding, and connection. |