The 2024 Botanic Garden Summer Interns

In addition to our two conservation interns–Emilia Neyer ’26 and Sophia Zuccala ’26 who began at the start of the year, and are coming on in a full-time capacity for the summer–we are welcoming four additional interns at the botanic garden this summer.

On our arboriculture crew is Denise Lewis (pictured above), who is earning her masters from the UMass Amherst Urban Forestry and Arboriculture Program. Lewis will be working with Chief Arborist Ben Green learning about plant and tree care, and will end the internship with her first tree climb. She will also be working on a special project creating educational materials for young visitors all about trees. Stay tuned for more information on that!

On the garden rotation are interns S. Whitin ’27 and Mattie Vandiver from Vassar College. Whitin, a geobiology major, is excited to work with plants in a hands-on capacity this summer, to be able to watch them grow out and see the horticultural work pay off. Vandiver, a biology major, was drawn to working at Lyman Plant House when visiting the greenhouse and seeing how the plants thrive in this space. She is working closely with Conservatory Curator Jimmy Grogan on a special project focusing on the fern collection: inventorying, reorganizing and thinking about curation.

Over the course of the summer, Whitin and Vandiver will work in week-long rotations inside Lyman Plant House with Greenhouse Horticulturist Lily Carone and Dan Babineau, and in the outdoor gardens with Gardeners Nate Saxe, Andrew Rebolo and Dave Dion.

Kris Cheaye ’26J, who was a Botanic Garden Student Educator during the 2023-24 school year, will work as a part-time intern this summer with Experiential Learning Specialist Gaby Immerman supporting the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust  "We the Land!” conference.

So far this summer, the interns have harvested jackfruit (garden crew), taken a roadtrip to Virginia for field work (conservation crew), and learned how to make clean cuts with pole saws (arboriculture crew). Be sure to follow along on social media–Instagram and Facebook–to see what other kinds of work the botanic garden summer interns get into.