Tracker of Plants

Emily was born and raised in rural northwestern Pennsylvania where she enjoyed camping and hiking with her family.  She began formal study of ethnobotany and herbalism at the University of Vermont under the tutelage of Kat Morgenstern and Barbara Nardozzi, respectively, and eventually went on to graduate with a degree in environmental studies from the University of Pittsburgh, where her thesis explored the Ethnobotany of the Iroquois with an Emphasis on the Seneca of the Upper Allegheny.  She has worked in several gardens including the permaculture garden at Cascada Verde Ecovillage and Retreat in Uvita, Costa Rica, the organic vegetable garden for Sivananda Yoga Ranch and Ashram, Woodbourne, NY, and was most recently zone manager to ten acres of The Oregon Garden, a world class botanical garden in Silverton, OR.

Emily has also worked as a professional field botanist for the United States Forest Service researching the impacts of deer density and herbicide application in Pennsylvania forests. She has been teaching herbalism professionally with leading Portland outdoor educators TrackersNW since 2007. In addition to years of self-directed studies, she has trained with Portland’s own Wild Foods guru John Kallas, wise-woman herbalist Susun Weed, Scott Kloos of Cascadia Folk Medicine, and regularly attends conferences such as the Breitenbush Herbal Conference. She also enjoys studying indigenous skills and can be found at primitive technology rendezvous such as Rabbitstick and Echoes in Time.  She is now studying for a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at Lewis and Clark College and makes her home with her two cats Mullein and Marigold in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon near the banks of the Willamette River.

For a more in-depth history read this post.