Student Clinical Herbalist Interns for 2024
Meet the interns who will start seeing clients in February 2024!
If you’d like to see someone in particular, please email them directly or contact our office to be connected to them. Consultations are offered virtually only, via video conferencing or phone.
Aylie Baker
Plants are older than us. Long before humans existed, they learned how to make life in the hot, dry, damp, even the darkest of places. Aylie is learning that when we lose our way, the plants can guide and accompany us back into health.
She comes to herbalism as a preschool teacher, poet, gardener, sailor and zen student. She welcomes all ages and experiences, particularly those seeking support for heart-mind-body integration, including stress, mood, focus and sleep, digestive complaints, heart issues, and blood sugar regulation. She approaches people as existing within families, communities and cultures, living in watersheds on a changing planet.
contact: aylieb@vtherbcenter.org
Deborah Connolly
Deborah understands the bond between food and healing; seeds planted in childhood grew into herbalism as a parent. A partner, mother, writer, earth-tender and apprentice, Deborah leads with her heart. For her, herbalism involves re-forming relationships between plants, humans and the earth – and the radical, transformative healing born from this reconnection. Deborah trusts in the body’s innate wisdom and self-healing ability, and feels plants are vital allies. With an integrated body/mind/spirit approach, Deborah offers compassionate, collaborative herbal care that recognizes each person’s unique journey. All people and health concerns are welcome.
contact: deborahc@vtherbcenter.org
Mygale Desrosiers
Mygale found herbalism many years ago, walking alongside herbal mentors and learning from the plants themselves. As a gardener, nature educator and storyteller, she is interested in the myriad ways plants help us find paths of health and meaning, rekindling and restoring balance within ourselves and our communities. Believing healing happens in relations of trust and deep care, she fosters an integrative body-mind-spirit approach to uphold people of all ages, experiences and background, including neurodiverse and queer folks. Some areas of interest are vitality, cardiovascular, digestive and metabolic health, anxiety, mood and grief support. Mygale lives in Ripon, Quebec, Anishinaabeg territories.
contact: mygaled@vtherbcenter.org
Lizzy Golden
As a queer and neurodivergent child, Lizzy found acceptance and companionship in the woods of New England. She was led to herbalism by way of an inexhaustible curiosity about the natural world, a belief in the inherent wisdom of humans and plants, and a call to caretaking as profound and sacred work. She is guided by values of radical acceptance, liberation, and wonder, and aims to provide an accessible space where kids, elders, and all those who feel marginalized within current systems of care can feel heard and held in their search for whatever brings them to our collaborative work.
contact: lizzyg@vtherbcenter.org
Merideth Lively
With a background in medical anthropology, Merideth is especially curious about how culture can shape health outcomes. Merideth’s own family heritage includes people of Appalachian multiracial and multiethnic descent, and early New England settlers from Europe, including families tried as witches. Merideth first learned mountain plant traditions from their grannies, papaws, aunties, and parents, in the garden and kitchen and woods. Their journey continued into clinical herbalism when they won a class series with Maria Noël Groves. A few areas of interest to Merideth include trauma-informed herbalism, supporting families with children, supporting people with autoimmune disease, and supporting LGBTQIA2S+ journeys.
contact: meridethl@vtherbcenter.org
Rebecca O’Dowd
Rebecca comes to herbalism with a passion for plants and community care, and with a background exploring botany and ecology. Over the past seven years, she has cultivated a love for both tending to the earth and collective through farming. She found herbalism as a convergence of these passions, and hopes to help foster interrelationships between people and place in a way that supports their health and spirit. She aims to create an open and empowering space for individuals on their health journey. She is particularly interested in supporting clients working with digestion, immunity, menstrual cycles, nervous system, and Lyme disease.
contact: rebeccao@vtherbcenter.org
Emma Radeka
Living in northern Vermont, Emma spends much of her time among the forest ecosystems of the Green Mountains. With previous areas of study including Environmental Studies and Integrative Healthcare, she has always known that her dream life path would include working with people and the natural world – and herbalism combines them beautifully. Her experiences as an outdoor educator/guide, ski patroller, herb farmer, and arborist align to provide an integrated understanding of – and curiosity about – human physiology, plant biology and magic, and the ways in which human and nonhuman species can work together to create healing of all kinds.
contact: emmar@vtherbcenter.org
Chelsea Vecellio
Chelsea’s love of nature and passion for holistic healthcare is what brought her down the magical path of herbalism. As a licensed massage therapist, she is devoted to helping others feel more balance within their bodies. She will show up with a compassionate heart, and deep listening skills, to help create a safe space for healing to begin. With your wisdom of self, trust in our partnership, and the medicine of the plants, we can co-create positive change in your life. Particular interests include challenges in the nervous system, cardiovascular system, and digestive system, but all health concerns are welcome.
contact: chelseav@vtherbcenter.org
Emily Vinson
Emily is passionate about herbal medicine as part of a broader effort to reconnect with ancestral ways of living. She hopes to help people feel empowered in their health by honoring each person’s experiences, intuition, and knowledge of themselves while offering resources, support, and education in return. She recognizes the interconnectedness between people and their environments, acknowledging the need for cultural shifts to support true health. Emily is especially interested in helping folks connect with the plants of their bioregion, nutritional approaches to healing, and supporting those with autoimmune disease.
contact: emilyv@vtherbcenter.org