Field Workshop CoordinatorAmy Lerner

Amy Lerner was born and raised in the urban jungle of Long Beach, CA. She began studying Spanish at age thirteen and has studied abroad and traveled in Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and Ecuador. She received her B.A. in Human Biology with a minor in Latin American Studies at Stanford University, where she also participated in ecological field study programs in the Australian Queensland Rainforest and at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado.

After college Amy worked with various environmental education programs specializing in organic gardening, farming, and wilderness appreciation. She was a teacher-in-residence at Slide Ranch in Marin, CA and also managed an urban gardening non-profit in Long Beach, CA where she taught gardening at several public schools. Amy has been a naturalist guide in the misty cloud forests of Venezuela and Ecuador, and also loves to wander the California coastal chaparral.

Amy received her M.A. in Environmental Studies from Brown University in May, 2006 where she focused on conservation planning. She is currently a PhD student at University of California, Santa Barbara where she is studying human-environment relationships, land-use, and agriculture in Latin America. In her free time Amy loves to identify plants, play guitar, garden, salsa dance, and eat chocolate.