Taralynn Reynolds

Taralynn has been a lifelong advocate of animals and the natural world and was inspired to pursue a career in conservation and education. After stints in the field, she began teaching as an environmental educator at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York after completing a master's degree in Conservation Biology from Columbia University. There she helped create and implement academic programs based on ecological learning principles and delivered them to students across the New York City metropolitan area. Taralynn helped develop a schoolyard habitat program with the National Audubon Society where she worked with K-12 students to plan and build "living laboratories" or outdoor classrooms that not only provide habitat for wildlife, but are also onsite spaces for students to take science out of the classroom, to a place where they can see, touch, smell, and observe what they are learning about inside. An avid traveler, Taralynn has combined her passion for protecting the planet and seeing new places. She spent three months living in the rainforests of Madagascar, studying endangered primates and two months in Ecuador where she led groups of high school students through the amazing experience of creating wildlife habitat and monitoring plant growth in the famous Galapagos Islands. This led her to accept a position as a biology and environmental science teacher at BASIS International School Shenzhen, China. For two years she taught and traveled throughout Southeast Asia, encouraging her students to become stewards of the world around them.

Taralynn joined Group for the East End, a regional environmental advocacy, education and conservation organization in 2019 where she works at their outreach and education manager. In this position, Taralynn manages a 51-acre preserve, bringing environmental education and nature-based opportunities to the public, from schools to scouts to adults seeking respite, the audience she serves is diverse. She also assists with habitat restoration projects at this preserve and others, restoring habitat and educating the public on saving wild land and wild places on the eastern end of Long Island.