In the Field with Our Summer Interns

Interns Provide Essential Help for Research & Conservation

In the summer of 2026, the Harris Center hired seven interns to work alongside our staff on a wide range of conservation research and stewardship initiatives, from monitoring conservation easements to surveying kestrel nest boxes. Along the way, they gained hands-on experience with the work of conservation — and provided invaluable support for many Harris Center programs.

Branching Out from Forestry to Wildlife

Addie Perry, our 2026 Erik Buxton forestry & wildlife intern, holds a kestrel chick during a day of banding as part of the Harris Center’s American Kestrel conservation project. All birds were handled for research purposes under appropriate state and federal permits. (photo © Phil Brown)

Addie Perry — this year’s Erik Buxton forestry & wildlife intern — is pursuing degrees in Forest Resource Management and Forest Technology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

“Addie has been a wonderful addition to the Harris Center team, bringing [experience with] forest inventory techniques, tree identification, and critical thinking to several of our research and stewardship projects,” says bird conservation director Phil Brown.

Addie assisted with a number of initiatives, including American Kestrel monitoring and banding, songbird banding, boundary marking, and forest inventory work on protected lands.

She also spent considerable time exploring the Harris Center’s Robb Reservoir property while conducting forest inventory work there. Phil notes that she “has probably logged more miles on foot on the Robb Reservoir property than any staff member before her.” Those miles brought their share of memorable wildlife encounters, including Addie’s first porcupine, seeing two bear cubs climbing a tree, and the discovery of a moose skeleton.

“Addie’s curious and inquisitive mind has made her a quick learner,” Phil remarks. “Her engaging and affable nature made her an asset on field trips, at workshops, and at Harris Center events throughout the summer, and allowed her to interact with numerous landowners, donors, volunteers, staff, and partner organizations, while gently imparting her knowledge on topics ranging from wood grains to forest health.”

Addie measures the diameter and height of trees during a forest inventory project at the Robb Reservoir property. (photo © Phil Brown)

For Addie, the experience helped connect her forestry studies with a broader understanding of wildlife conservation. “This internship has been a wonderful opportunity and served me specifically as an introduction into the wildlife side of natural resources management,” Addie explains. “As someone with a forestry background, it’s been truly invaluable. Every day I found myself learning something new, and as I continue my education, I expect to pull from all I’ve learned during my time at the Harris Center.”

Critical Help With a Critical Task

Easement monitoring intern Quinn Hutchings (photo © Michelle Aldredge)

When a landowner places a conservation easement on their property, the Harris Center takes on a lasting responsibility: ensuring that the terms of that easement are upheld, even as properties change hands. To meet our insurance carrier’s stringent requirements, we must visit and monitor each of the 130+ conservation easements we hold every year — together protecting nearly 14,000 acres of land.

It’s an enormous undertaking, and conservation easement monitoring interns Quinn Hutchings and Jens Petersen provided critical help with that work this summer. “It would not be possible to complete this enormous task without the help of hard-working summer interns,” says land program director Eric Masterson. “Thanks to their incredible industry, Jens and Quinn have carried the lift on a huge annual burden, allowing James Newsom and I to focus our energies on new conservation projects.”

For Quinn, who lives in Hancock and studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, visiting these protected properties offered a new perspective on conservation happening close to home. “I’ve always heard about the conservation efforts in our area and in the state as a whole, but to see that in action and participate in them was really edifying,” says Quinn. “To walk through these properties and see the life and beauty in them, and then to know I was helping to protect that, was incredible! Each property was its own little world to explore.”

In addition to easement monitoring, Jens Petersen also took time to participate in a pilot songbird banding program at the Harris Center (above), assist with events, and learn more about conservation research. (photo © Phil Brown)

The work also gave Jens — who holds a BS in Data Science and an MS in Environmental Science & Policy, both from Clark University — the chance to meet many of the people whose commitment to their land makes long-term conservation possible. “What stood out to me most in my work this summer was the landowners whose properties I was monitoring. Some people that I spoke with were new to owning an easement, and others had owned theirs for decades, but they were all truly interested in preserving and rewilding their land. There wasn’t a hint of capital interest or the ‘what’s-in-it-for me?’ mentality,” he adds. “Instead, owners asked me to keep an eye out for certain wildlife or developments in the forest. It was incredible to work for an organization built on such a solid foundation of selfless conservation.”

Learning Beyond the Classroom

This summer marked the thirteenth year of the Harris Center-Keene State College conservation internship program, a paid summer intensive for undergraduate students in environmental studies, biology, and related fields at Keene State College.

Under the mentorship of KSC professor Karen Seaver and Harris Center ecologists Brett Amy Thelen and Nate Marchessault, four KSC students — Laurel Feindel, Emma Goldsmith, Benjamin LaBier, and Ayushma Limbu — explored many facets of the Harris Center’s conservation, education, and stewardship work.

The KSC internship team (left to right: Emma Goldsmith, Laurel Feindel, Benjamin LaBier, and Ayushma Limbu) show off some of the invasive garlic mustard they pulled during their summer 2026 internship experience with the Harris Center. (photo © Brett Amy Thelen)

Together, the team pulled invasive plants, checked trail cams, monitored an emerald ash borer study plot, measured trees for a forest inventory project, counted bats emerging from SuperSanctuary roost sites, observed songbird banding, assisted with educational events, and more.

The KSC internship team works alongside Harris Center staff and volunteers to count bats emerging from a maternity roosting site in the SuperSanctuary. (photo © Brett Amy Thelen)

That variety gave the interns opportunities to experience conservation work that can be difficult to capture in a classroom. When the group gathered with Harris Center staff to reflect on their summer, they singled out bat counting, ponding with Susie Spikol, and exploring both the woods and vernal pools as highlights from their internship.

“I think some experiences can’t…be replicated in a textbook,” Benjamin explained. Bird banding was a particularly memorable example: “There’s a big difference between seeing three different diagrams of a bird and having a real bird right in front of you.”

Thank You

The Harris Center is deeply grateful to all of our interns for the curiosity, energy, and hard work they brought to the Harris Center this summer. Their contributions strengthened research, stewardship, education, and land conservation efforts across the region — and we couldn’t do what we do without them.