2024 Team From left to right back row: Kris, Jonathan, Jackie, Celia, Jake, Bill, Muriel, Matt, Kiki From left to right front row: Sophia, Marcos, Celine (dog), Amanda (Kristen + Jess not pictured)

  • Sarah is an Emmy-award-winning film producer, an organic farmer, and an activist for environmental, educational, and gender issues. Sarah has served as a producer, or executive producer, on notable recent films including, Birdman (Academy Award for Best Picture), The Glorias (Sundance 2020), Spaceship Earth (Sundance 2020), The Immigrant, Submergence, Blood Ties, Devil Knot, Joe, Catch and Release, Lost Child, The Green Inferno, etc. Her social-issue documentaries include The Great Hack, the Academy-Award-nominated The Square, Chasing Ice, The Invisible War, The Hunting Ground and Living in Emergency: Stories Of Doctors Without Borders. Sarah is on the boards of St.Lawrence University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Woodstock Film Festival.

  • Jessica Cox, MA LPCC, is a trauma informed counselor providing mental health, addictions recovery and grief counseling to teens, adults and elders in Denver Colorado.  A lifelong environmentalist, Jessica centers her work through the lens of Rogerian theory, eco/horticultural therapy and mindfulness practices. As a person in recovery, Jessica has witnessed "healing in nature" as a powerful tool to help regulate your mind,  body and spirit.  Cox is currently employed as an Addictions Counselor at Denver Health in the Outpatient Behavioral Health department. Denver Health is Colorado's leading trauma safety net hospital. Cox has experience working with women, the LGBTQIA2+ community and provides mental health and grief counseling through her own practice Hope and Healing Denver.  

    Cox brings over twenty years of senior level private sector and nonprofit management experience working as Marketing Director for leading media companies such as the BBC, Hachette Publications (ELLE), Turner Broadcasting (Cartoon Network) and finally Universal Studios Networks as VP Brand Development, specializing in global marketing communications and new channel launches. 

    Most recently serving as White Feather Farm's interim Executive Director,  she is an organizational development specialist, having raised and managed millions of dollars for Riverkeeper, the ACLU, God's Love We Deliver, EDF, EANY and UK based environmental law firm Client EarthUS. In 2024, Jessica completed her MA Counseling (Ecotherapy, Trauma, Children and Addictions) at Southwestern College and is a trauma informed C-GC, and holds a BA in Communications and Media Arts from Marymount Manhattan College.

  • Kathleen is the President of the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming, the Founder of Pleiades, a national constellation of women changemakers and serves a Co-Director of the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy of Rome, founded by Alice Waters. An experienced non-profit leader, writer and network builder, she is particularly interested in empowering women and  historically marginalized individuals to address our most pressing issues, especially humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

  • Tyler Love is the Chief Technology Officer and founding employee at Bustle Digital Group, a New York City-based media company. Since 2012, he has helped the company launch and acquire many of the most iconic brands in media through a technology-driven strategy. . He's now looking for ways to use his experience to empower modern farming with technology, software, and media strategies.

  • Craig is a writer/producer/director with three Emmy nominations at major broadcast networks who specializes in news magazine and documentary feature work. Craig is Founder of the Will Allen Foundation, creating philanthropic and communications strategies for Will Allen’s sustainable urban agriculture center and creative consultant to Alice Waters, of the Eligible Schoolyard, well known activist and celebrity who sparked a national movement towards local, organic, sustainably sourced food. Craig is also Operations Manager for celebrity photographer Annie Liebowitz. Prior to his philanthropic and agriculture work, Craig was a senior producer at Turner Broadcasting working internationally for CNN.

  • Marcos Stafne is an executive director with a visible track record of impact across nonprofit leadership and informal education. Throughout his career, he’s partnered with top-tier organizations in arts and STEM education, environmental preservation, and land stewardship to deliver accessible programming to diverse communities. Marcos joined GallopNYC, a program that serves New Yorkers with disabilities through therapeutic horsemanship, as Executive Director in October of 2022. Prior to his role at GallopNYC, Marcos served as the Director of Learning Experiences for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Zoos and Aquarium, overseeing educational programming efforts at the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, and New York Aquarium. He was the Executive Director of the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, Vermont, serving both Vermont and New Hampshire communities from 2015-2021. He has held numerous senior programmatic positions with nonprofit New York City organizations including Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art, and the New York Hall of Science. He holds a BA inTheater from Rollins College, an MA in Theater from Hunter College, and a PhD in Urban Education from the Graduate Center of the City of New York.

  • President of Scenic Hudson since 1999, Ned Sullivan has directed the organization through a period of dramatic growth in its regional impact. Today Scenic Hudson is recognized as a regional and national leader in its field, recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal in 2007 and the Land Trust Alliance’s National Land Trust Excellence Award in 2011. As deputy commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation from 1987 to 1995, Mr. Sullivan was charged with starting up the state’s $1-billion hazardous waste cleanup initiative and oversaw air, water and waste management programs, as well as passage of federal and state Superfund laws. He also served on a Presidential task force that created an innovative federal-state loan program to finance billions of dollars in wastewater treatment infrastructure across the country and implemented the program in New York.  Mr. Sullivan earned a B.A. in political science and a coordinate degree in environmental studies from Williams College and master’s degrees from Yale University’s School of Management and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Mr. Sullivan received the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Distinguished Service Award in 2012.

Board of Directors/ Advisory Board

  • For Marcos, joining WFF is the lifelong culmination of a personal love of farming, the arts and community building, plus a passion for science, innovation and education. He has a visible track record of impact across nonprofit leadership and informal education, and partnered with top-tier organizations in arts and STEM education, environmental preservation, and land stewardship to deliver accessible programming to diverse communities. Marcos joined GallopNYC, a program that serves New Yorkers with disabilities through therapeutic horsemanship, as Executive Director in October of 2022. Prior to his role at GallopNYC, Marcos served as the Director of Learning Experiences for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Zoos and Aquarium, overseeing educational programming efforts at the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, and New York Aquarium. He was the Executive Director of the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, Vermont, serving both Vermont and New Hampshire communities from 2015-2021. He has held numerous senior programmatic positions with nonprofit New York City organizations including Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art, and the New York Hall of Science. He holds a BA inTheater from Rollins College, an MA in Theater from Hunter College, and a PhD in Urban Education from the Graduate Center of the City of New York.

  • Bio coming soon!

Administration

  • Celia loves immersing herself in the natural world around her and exploring with abandon. As far back as she can recall, she was growing vegetables in her grandmother’s garden in Lancaster and flowers in her mother's backyard in Philadelphia. At WFF, Celia oversees our feathered friends, manages the farm, and inspires our design and image work. She is passionate about sharing the beauty of nature through art and her murals, which often include chickens. Celia lives in Mt. Tremper and thoroughly enjoys her home in the Hudson Valley.

  • Born in Kingston, NY, and raised in Saugerties. Since he was young, Jonathan has been captivated by nature—its beauty, mysteries, and what makes it thrive. He was taught the importance of organically grown foods and conserving our planet’s habitats and wildlife, leaving him with a feeling of a personal responsibility to do what he can to make a difference in the world, no matter the scale. Working with seeds for the past 10 years, although those first six years were coffee beans that were roasted, ground, and brewed to be enjoyed as a beverage, during that time he had the opportunity to learn about coffee farming practices and realized how intricate and versatile just one plant can be. This knowledge ultimately inspired him to join the farm crew to pursue a much more fulfilling career. Jonathan will keep growing as we do. This is his fourth year at the farm and his first year officially as White Feather Farm’s Greenhouse and Field Planning Manager. Continuing his duties of sowing and nursing the majority of our seeds for transplant, overseeing microgreen production, and collaborating with the crew to achieve another successful season.

Farm

  • Muriel grew up in France bonding with nature in the Provence and low mountain Burgundy regions, where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Education and started her teaching career. After a ten-year hiatus training as a glass painter and subsequently working as a stained glass conservator, Muriel returned to education by joining the founding board of the International School of Brooklyn in 2004. As the school’s first education director, she set the foundation for ISB’s bilingual, International Baccalaureate curriculum framework, and went on to focus on curriculum development and teaching for the next two decades. Today, combining the roles of sustainability coordinator and art teacher at ISB, and education director at the White Feather Farm, Muriel’s goals are to provide every member of the community with opportunities to engage and connect with nature. She believes in the potential of each individual to restore and benefit from nature’s integrity and balance, and that every child deserves the key to re-imagine the future.

  • Sophia Goode is a farm educator and farm crew at White Feather Farm in Saugerties, NY. Sophia is a forager, gardener, builder, self-taught mycologist, educator, and artist. She is committed to community, sustainable land use and ecological preservation. Science and art combined is her practice.

Education

  • Bill Hilgendorf grew up in Boston MA, but fell in love with furniture design and interiors while living in Stockholm, Sweden, in search of his roots. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in industrial design he moved to Brooklyn and co-founded the multi-disciplinary design firm Uhuru in 2003. For two decades Bill has employed design to tell the story of discarded objects and underutilized materials. In 2016 Bill co-founded Wilderkill a family retreat in the Catskill mountains as a place for small groups and families to connect with nature and learn more about their environmental impact. After at trip to Gothenburg Sweden in 2019 to study innovation in sustainability, Bill stepped back from day to day operations at uhuru in to focus his energy more directly on the climate crisis. With a growing obsession with Biochar, he co-founded Eldr Six as a launchpad dedicated to developing and showcasing upcycled carbon negative materials and products. With the singular focus on localized material innovation around Biochar he is working on the next generation of carbon sequestration and net-zero products. Currently Bill lives and works in between Brooklyn and the Catskills with his wife and fellow designer Maria Cristina and their two children.

    www.williamhilgendorf.com

  • Kris is a local herbarium artist and passionate nature advocate living just outside Woodstock, NY. She has been a plant fanatic for the 25 plus years since she moved to the Hudson Valley. Her goal is to collect and create a record of as many plants as possible in our local landscape. She has collected 100 plus plants just from her 5 acre property in Saugerties alone! Kris was awarded a grant through the Susanna Meyer Creative Arts Award in 2020 that culminated in a 2021 plant collection exhibit at The Lamb Center in Saugerties, NY. She is excited to offer a three week, hands-on herbarium workshop at White Feather Farm.

    For over 25 years Kris has been overseeing greenhouses, gardens and indoor plant collections for both businesses and estates throughout the Hudson Valley. She spends her free time observing plants, where-ever they may be growing, by exploring in the woods, fields, mountain trails, stream sides, road sides, overgrown lots and even cracks in a sidewalk! Her goal is to offer her enthusiasm about plants to get people on their lifelong path of passion for the natural world around us! Kris has earned a certification in botany through The New York Botanical Garden and is a New York State Licensed Guide, her artwork is sold privately.

    https://www.goflowergo.com/

  • Brooke Singer is an artist, educator, and serial collaborator. In addition to being Director of Farm Innovation at White Feather Farm, she is also Professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York, where she has been on faculty since 2003. From 2018-2020. She was a research affiliate with the Groffman Research Group, Environmental Sciences Initiative, Advanced Scientific Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She was a former fellow at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center (2010–2011), co-founder of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media (2002–2008) and co-founder of La Casita Verde, a community garden and living lab in Brooklyn, NY (2013–). Brooke has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as MoMA/PS1, Warhol Museum of Art, The Banff Centre, Neuberger Museum of Art, Diverseworks and Matadero Madrid. She has been in residence at New York Hall of Science, Marble House Project, Headlands Center for the Arts, Helsinki International Artist Programme, among others. Her work has been funded by Patagonia, New York State Council on the Arts, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and Open Society Foundations, to name just a few. Her writing has been published in Big Data and Society, Radical History Review and Brooklyn Rail. She is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Microsoft and Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy.

Research Staff

  • Born and raised in Saugerties, Jake is a modern renaissance man who can split rails for a new fence, oversee the building of a house, design a new chicken coop, cut down willows, a hemlock, fix a tractor, a greenhouse boiler, sap, boil, and produce maple syrup, lead kids education workshops, and much more. We can depend on Jake to keep the farm running smoothly with a twinkle in his eyes, a smile, and humor, much needed when the pipes freeze at 4 a.m. Coming from a long line of professional maintenance and property managers, as our Farm Operations and Property Manager, Jake oversees and manages the daily workings of our facilities, troubleshoots as challenges arise, and manages special projects as we continue to grow.

  • Fresh out of Montana, Kristen comes to us with a BS in Hospitality Management and a Minor in Business Administration. She wears many hats for our organization. Jumping between our day to day finances to administrative coordination to venue and event coordination to capital project management, Kristen provides support to all of the departments here at WFF.

  • (Bio Coming Soon!)

Operations Staff