Michelle brings to BEEC her passion for experiential learning and her dedication to Earth stewardship. She has served as the Director of Environmental Education at Northfield Mount Hermon School, Executive Director at Oak Meadow, and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro, where she established Kids Club at Retreat Farm, a nature-based afterschool program. Michelle is a graduate of Harvard’s Women in Education Leadership Program, Antioch New England’s Environmental Studies Master’s Program and she holds a B.S. in Education and English from the University of Rhode Island. Presenting on tradition and innovation in K-12 education at conferences like SxSWedu, National Association of Independent Schools, National Partnership for Educational Access, Children & Nature Network, and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, she has provided thought leadership in the progressive, experiential education sector for the past decade. Michelle loves traveling to new places and has a 1979 Airstream for inspiration.
Patti Smith – Naturalist
Conservation Initiatives & Public Programs
Patti has worked at BEEC since its founding in 1991, continuing to develop and share her lifelong fascination with the natural world. Those who read her View from Heifer columns know that some of her best friends are rodents and they will be acquainted with Willow the beaver, Burdock the porcupine, and the other wild creatures she has befriended and cared for. Patti is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and fields the many calls that come in to BEEC about wildlife woes. Her favorite season is winter.
Kristina Weeks – Environmental Educator
School & Youth Programs
Kristina joined BEEC in 2012, and loves exploring with youth of all ages to discover together the wonders of nature. She enjoys tracking in the sand, mud and snow, playing games becoming animals, and creating nature arts and crafts. Kristina grew up in Papua New Guinea and Botswana, with parents who loved adventure in the great outdoors which instilled in her a great love of the natural world. At Marlboro College, Kristina earned her B.S. in Conservation Biology, with a focus on carnivore ecology and community conservation in southern Africa. At Antioch University New England, Kristina earned her M.S. in Environmental Education, with a focus on a continuum of outdoor and place-based education through the elementary and middle grades.
Ellen Peters – Environmental Educator
Ellen Peters is from Barre, Vermont. She earned her elementary education degree from The University of Vermont. She has never taught anywhere but in Vermont! Ellen began her career in a one room school in Guildhall, Vermont. After ten years there she took a job in a “big” school in Jamaica, Vermont where she taught primarily first and second grades for 28 years. She ended her career at Townshend Elementary School when she retired in June of 2021. Ellen’s passion in teaching is hands-on, inquiry based, place- based outdoor education. Music and puppets also play a large part. She does not feel ready for a life without any teaching at all, which lead her heart to BEEC. “The curiosity and wonder of children, especially outdoors, is what feeds my heart.”
Shaliq Harvey – Environmental Educator
Shaliq’s mission is to empower young people to care about the natural world. Having studied Fish & Wildlife Technology, Shaliq is a lover of all the planet’s fauna. However, his main focus has always been North American birds! If asked, his favorite is the American Goshawk…but the real answer is he has one in every family. Previously, Shaliq was an educator and program coordinator for an accredited conservation organization. When he’s not in a wetland or forest, you might catch Shaliq making art, watching anime, or training mixed martial arts. If he suddenly breaks eye contact in conversation, he’s probably birding.
Jill DeVito – AmeriCorps Environmental Educator
Jill loves to connect people of all ages with their own curiosity about science and nature. She once wrote a dissertation about how toad tadpoles behave around garter snakes, which is appropriate because many of her favorite animals are creepy and crawly. Before moving to Vermont to spend more time in the woods, she lived in many other states – including Texas, where she taught biology for fifteen years at the University of Texas at Arlington. During that time she moonlighted as an informal educator, first at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, and later at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.
Mo Rosenberg – Business Manager
Mo grew up on Long Island, NY and earned her B.A. in environmental ethics and geology from New York University. She’s spent time guiding kayak tours in southern Alaska, tracking desert tortoises with the U.S.G.S. in the Mojave, and working as a park ranger for several seasons in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, a place that will always be close to her heart. She’s been an organic vegetable farmer for a little over a decade, most recently just across the river in Winchester, N.H. Learning the ropes of farm office work has helped to hone her administrative skills, and she’s excited to join BEEC and put them to good use to help make a difference in this corner of the world. A few of her favorite things are wildflowers, conifers, and rocks, and she can often be found staring up into the canopy of really big trees.
Meet the Nature Explorers Camp Staff team here
In Memory of Deb Smith
Through her work at BEEC over 15 years, Deb brought joy to many and she touched the lives and spirits of countless area youth and teachers. Learn more about Deb here.