Nancy erber
Nancy Erber grew up in Jamaica, Queens where her father lovingly tended a small vegetable and flower garden in their mostly paved backyard.
As a college and graduate student, she studied abroad in France and Germany, earned a PHD in Romance Languages from Cornell University and completed a second MA in Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) at Hunter College, CUNY. She taught in adult education programs as a volunteer and became a professor at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, teaching linguistics, French and ESL. She also served as the chapter chair of the faculty-staff union at LaGuardia and as chair of the Language and Education department.
A longtime activist and volunteer, she participated in agricultural and river restoration projects in Central America and France and later worked with those international organizations to recruit new members. In New York City she co-founded the Association of Part-Time Faculty to advocate for better benefits and working conditions for adjunct teachers and continued as an activist and elected official in the CUNY union, the Professional Staff Congress.
In East Hampton, she co-founded a community group, The Friends of Sammys Beach, that successfully advocated for the restoration of a local nature preserve and, more recently, co-founded ChangeHampton, a group focused on sustainable land use and native planting. She tends a small container garden and enjoys the woodland, native plants, grasses and Japanese-style pond on a modest lot in East Hampton's Northwest Woods, all tended and designed by the chief gardener, her spouse. Now retired, she works on freelance writing, editing, proofreading and translation projects.
Nancy Erber joined the ReWild board in December 2022.
Kimberly Simmen
Kimberly Simmen is a Certified Nursery Landscape Professional with 20 plus years in the business. Starting in 2000 while attending SCCC Riverhead part time in the evening to study Horticulture with a Landscape Design Emphasis (the Horticulture program was cancelled in 2005, just short of her degree). She then went on to become Assistant Manager of the Perennial Division at H.R. Talmage & Son in Riverhead, NY. It was here she learned of native plants and their importance to the ecosystem. In 2003 she began operating her own Garden Maintenance and Planter business using only hand tools (currently still doing planters). She also worked for Glover Perennials in Cutchogue, NY.
In July 2020 during the pandemic, Kimberly opened KMS Native Plants LLC in Lake Grove procuring plants native to Long Island, the Northeast and North America for her customers. She currently consults Girl Scout troops, schools, homeowners, landscapers and anyone else willing to learn about native plants and the importance of biodiversity.
Kimberly joined the board of ReWild Long Island in 2021 and serves as Director of Sustainable Horticulture.
Kimberly Simmen
(Credit: Maggie Tittler Photography.)
Beth Sutherland
A lifelong organic home gardener, in recent years Beth Sutherland has become interested in native plants and herbal medicine. She volunteers with native plant and garden groups, and is a Master Gardener in the Suffolk County program. She has been studying the historical and current uses of native plants and local weeds in supporting healthy living, and is a member of the American Herbalists Guild.
As a member of the board of ReWild Long Island, Beth is the Treasurer and co-leads the MidSuffolk Chapter, the Native to Long Island label program, and is involved with ReWild Walks and Talks. Beth is retired from a career in not-for-profit insurance companies where she gained actuarial, financial, and business skills in a variety of leadership roles.
Beth is a 35 year resident of Long Island, first in Centerport and now in Poquott. She is gradually transforming her yard from non-native plantings into a sanctuary for native plants, herbs and wildlife.
Gloria Frazee
Maybe it was sitting on the front stoop as a child and observing the little red ants that sparked Gloria’s love of the outdoors… Somehow, this led to wearing Birkenstocks through mud seasons in Vermont, teaching aquatic chemistry, canoeing, and rock climbing at a science camp, and working on organic farms and vineyards. Photography, weaving, poetry and managing produce at the local coop were in the mix, too.
Obviously, the next steps to work high tech manufacturing (ick) and earn an MBA in marketing followed by a career in wine education and brand management. This included developing national training programs and an online wine school as well as interviewing winemakers on video, sharing their stories along with a blend of geography, geology, climate, agriculture, and history that comprise the terroir that shapes a wine’s character.
Gloria eventually “retired,” reclaimed her yard from the mow-and-blow crew, bought a reel-mower (a scythe is next), started watching bees and butterflies and planting natives that are slowly replacing the lawn with life.
Wanting to connect with her community in meaningful ways, she joined the East Hampton Energy & Sustainability Committee, where she is secretary, and ReWild, where she is co-chair of the Social Media & Web Committee and co-leader of the ReWild/South Fork chapter and its Summer Program for high school students. She is also the founder of ReWild/East Hampton Compost in collaboration with the Town of East Hampton. You can find her talking with folks about turning food scraps into soil food at the ReWild table at Springs Farmers Market most Saturdays.
She still wears Birkenstocks and revels in soil (and mud) and compost. It’s all a part of terroir. It’s alive.
Gloria joined the ReWild Board in 2022.
leonard green
Leonard Green is a retired English professor who has taught at private and public universities. At CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College, he served for many years as Director of Freshman English and Assistant Director of the Learning Center. While at Cornell University, in addition to his full time teaching responsibilities, he often worked with COSEP, now the Office of Academic Diversity, teaching a diverse student population in the special summer program.
Born on Long Island, Leonard comes from a family of farmers and gardeners. His grandparents left their Virginia farm for Long Island during the Great Migration. As a child, he helped plant and maintain their family gardens. He now lives in East Hampton, where he and his wife, Nancy, have converted most of their property to native woodland, mixed meadow, and native gardens.
An activist, he helped establish the Friends of Sammy’s Beach, a community group that campaigned for the full restoration of the native plant community destroyed by a misguided dredging project in East Hampton. He is also a co-founder of Change Hampton, a group dedicated to promoting native gardens and sustainable landscaping practices. Change Hampton has been instrumental in installing a native pollinator garden at East Hampton Town Hall.
Len has served on the ReWild Board since December 2022.
Raju Rajan
Raju Rajan is a technologist and community builder whose work bridges innovation, ecology, and social transformation. After earning his PhD in Communication Networks from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he built a distinguished career as a researcher (IBM, AT&T), technology consultant (HPE, Cisco), and entrepreneur founding two IT start-ups. He has also played an active role in multiple community organizations through his life, building progressive coalitions focused on education, immigration, and social justice.
Now retired, Raju dedicates his time to being an avid gardener and tree enthusiast on two continents.
In Southern India, Raju owns and manages Sharadavanam, a small agroforest adjacent to biodiversity hotspots in the Western Ghats, devoted to rewilding with native plants for the benefit of local wildlife.
In the US, as co-founder and the current Board President of ReWild Long Island, Raju leads community-based efforts in New York to promote sustainable landcare through native plant restoration, composting, recycling, and other practices that strengthen climate resilience and biodiversity.
Raju lives in Port Washington, New York, with his wife Sonia, where his commitment to technology, ecology, and compassionate community life continues to keep him busy.
Duong vu
Duong (“Dzuong”, pronounced “Zuon”, a.k.a. “Dee”) graduated from City College of New York with a B.A. in International Studies and an M.A. in Economics. After graduation, she found her place in a small trading company starting as an office assistant. She learned about the business, became a sourcing merchandiser and now she is a manager.
Duong was born in rural Vietnam. Her childhood memories consist of going to the field with her mother, hand-pollinating corn stalks, harvesting peanuts, soybeans, and the big Autumn rice harvest. She relocated to Dix Hills in 2019 and started her own little garden. She loves watching plants grow.
In 2020, she learned about native plants and their importance in the local ecosystem. She was captivated and determined to transform her yard into a wildlife habitat. Her yard is now a place full of life and joy, and she hopes to inspire many homeowners to do the same.
Duong has been on the Board of ReWild since November 2023.
Photographed by: David Benthal
Nancy DePas Reinertsen
Nancy DePas Reinertsen has always had a passion for gardening. It has been a part of her personal, academic, and professional life. She earned various educational degrees in Horticulture and Linguistics from SUNY Farmingdale, Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center. While she began a career as an interior landscaper, she later dedicated 25 years as an English teacher to immigrants at Newcomers HS and LaGuardia CC. Upon retiring, she was drawn back to her first love and became a Master Gardener.
Nancy was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, into a family of passionate gardeners who instilled in her a love of gardening, baking, and cooking. Today, she tends to her garden in the North Fork. Here, she's learned a lot by transforming useless lawn into native plant oases, planting berries for birds and her family, creating deer-resistant gardens, and growing trees, vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
Nancy and her husband, Ralph, joined Slow Food East End to meet like-minded people interested in preserving the local environment. She is active in various local programs supporting environmental stewardship and ecological justice. Despite her busy schedule, Nancy still finds time to enjoy the local beaches, swim in Peconic Bay, drink local wine, and host fabulous dinner parties.
Nancy joined the ReWild board in January 2024, co-chairing the North Fork Chapter with Ralph.
Photographed by: Hannah Weigand
Aimee Kemp
Aimee Kemp grew up exploring nature in Northern California. Aimee learned her gardening skills from her mother. Her passion for the outdoors led to a BA in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology from Columbia University where she conducted thesis research on the effects of invasive species on northeastern deciduous forest leaf litter communities. After graduating, she joined NYC Teaching Fellows and earned a MS in Science Education at Pace University.
Aimee has taught middle school science for 16 years in Coney Island where she strives to teach students about local ecology and conservation. To further her education, Aimee earned a MA in Biology through Miami University’s Project Dragonfly. During the program she interviewed Dr. Douglas Tallamy, noted author and proponent of native plants, and began channeling her focus into native plants with a passion for community action. Aimee recently converted part of her lawn into a thriving native plant pollinator garden and hopes that it will inspire others in her community to do the same.
Aimee lives in Williston Park with her husband, son, and their many pets. She has served on the ReWild Board since 2025.
Staff
Samantha Jo: Gardens Project Manager
Samantha began her quest to find balance in our modern lives to coexist with the natural world since 2021. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Queens College, and carries an entrepreneurial spirit embedded by her immigrant parents. After working a few years in the finance industry, she leaned into her interest in health & wellness, and found a passion for sustainability in regards to regenerative agriculture, composting, and the list expands every year.
While she didn’t grow up around the garden, Samantha was eager to learn and completed her apprenticeship on an organic farm in Indiana, NYC’s Master Composter Program, and Permaculture Design Course. Samantha was inspired to teach beginners to encourage more local food production by creating urban vegetable gardens through her small business, Steady Harvest.
In her free time, Samantha loves spending time with her family, friends, and fur baby- Oliver. She enjoyed tending her garden, cooking, hiking, or simply anything that brings her loved ones closer.
Samantha joined ReWild in February 2024.
Emma Diaz: Garden Coordinator
With a tendency to fascinate over complex systems and how they function, it was only a matter of time before Emma realized that she wanted to dedicate her life to the natural world and all of its intricacies.
Loving ecology and ecosystem restoration in particular, Emma has let her curiosity for those subjects carve her eventual path to ReWild Long Island. Before graduating with a bachelors in Environmental Analysis from Washington University in St. Louis, she first followed her curiosity to upstate New York, where she investigated the weaknesses of invasive mussels. Captivated by that experience and looking to expand her knowledge, she then proceeded to Missouri for botanical surveys and, unexpectedly, to plant-pollinator research in the Ecuadorian Andes and native seed banking in Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago. Eventually, Emma would find her way back home, where she worked on detecting and managing Long Island’s emerging invasive species before finding ReWild.
Emma loves and takes inspiration from all life forms, making sure to take her hand lens and sketchbook with her everywhere if only to appreciate them more fully. Wanting to return to her roots post-graduation, Emma hopes to use her experiences to now serve the ecosystems and communities of New York.
Christine Iasso: Garden Coordinator
A lifelong resident of Long Island, Christine has long been active in gardening and sustainable practices. As a child, she would sit by her mother as she gardened and eagerly inspect every earthworm and grasshopper that came wriggling out of the disturbed soil. Christine grew up in Port Jefferson, surrounded by an oak-hickory forest full of songbirds, which lended itself to her hobby of birdwatching and photography. The more she watched the birds, the more she became fascinated with the interactions between all levels of the ecosystem.
Christine started her first native garden at home in 2019, after helping with a project to install native rain gardens with her high school environmental club. Once she was introduced to native plants, her interest grew exponentially, and she decided to study landscape design to help popularize the use of native plants in the field. While attending Virginia Tech, she worked as a gardener on a property that specialized in Virginia natives. Now a graduate with a bachelors in Landscape Design and Horticulture, Christine endeavors to design residential and public landscapes for long-term sustainability, reduced maintenance, and environmental impact. In addition to her role with ReWild, she serves as the horticulturist for her hometown.
Christine can often be found outside, tending to her native gardens and vegetable gardens. Her love of growing vegetables was passed down from her grandfather, which developed into a love for cooking with the food she grows. She spends the rest of her free time surrounded by nature, hiking and kayaking in local parks and traveling to see the natural beauty of the entire country.
Christine joined ReWild in November 2025.
Danielle Freda: Community Coordinator
Danielle was born and raised on the East End of Long Island , where she developed a deep appreciation for the region’s unique coastal environment. Spending much of her early life on the water surfing and sailing, she cultivated a strong connection to the natural world that continues to guide her work today.
Motivated to protect these ecosystems, Danielle earned a degree in Environmental Science and Spanish from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. During her studies, she worked in a climate science lab, where she explored how nature-based solutions can help mitigate the impacts of climate change. This experience sparked her passion for green infrastructure, including rain gardens and the use of native plants.
After returning to Long Island, Danielle worked with several environmental nonprofits, building strong community ties and contributing to local conservation efforts. She now brings her experience and dedication to ReWild Long Island, where she looks forward to supporting the South Fork chapter through community engagement and ecological restoration initiatives.
Former Board Members
Kathy Coley
Kathy Coley is a lifelong gardener from a long line of gardening enthusiasts and farmers. She retired in September 2020 after 40 plus years from Farmingdale State College. At Farmingdale, she advised students, coordinated media/government relations, created marketing strategies, co-chaired two presidential inauguration committees, and worked with the college president on the annual start-of-the-semester convocation.
Kathy’s involvement with environmental issues is longstanding, serving on FSC’s Sustainability Committee and organizing the annual Earth Day Fair. She was campus liaison with Transit Solutions and 511NY Rideshare, working on Car Free Day LI. A member of the Board of Directors for SUNYCUAD, SUNY’s professional development association, she co-chaired the 2013 Conference on Long Island.
Kathy continues to serves as a Director on the Board of Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington. She has lived in Port Washington since 1979, where she raises vegetables and composts as much as possible. She is the proud grandmother of August who arrived in June 2019.
Elizabeth Skolnick
Liz Skolnick is an environmental researcher, journalist and non-profit consultant who has had a lifelong love for and curiosity about the natural world. She served as project director for the Long Island Recycling Initiative, and has consulted with the NYC Parks Dept. and NYC EDC on urban greening projects. She has also worked with several community-based activism groups striving to remediate compromised ecosystems, such as the English Kills Project and Greenpoint Bioremediation Project.
Currently, she works as a PR consultant for leading renewable energy companies while also building the sustainability "think tank," Marble Blue.
Sag Harbor was Liz's first home, and she currently splits her time between her family's home on Long Island and her apartment in Brooklyn, where she is experimenting with potted plant propagation and tiny-space composting.
Liz served on the board starting in 2021.