The Seed Farm sits on 3.5 acres of land where we grow rare, culturally-meaningful seed crops with community partners and pursue relevant research questions about the art and science of heirloom plants. Students, scholars, and community partners come together to learn from each other. Though we come together from a wide range of disciplines and life experiences, we share a common focus: our work deals with questions of repair and mutualism including repairing relationships with land, soil, plants, the environment, and each other and thinking about the essential role that mutualisms play in processes of repair.
In our gardens, we grow plants for their seeds, which means tending them through lush green and peak fruit until pods have dried, fruits have browned, and seeds have matured. Each summer, Princeton students plant seeds from community partners and tend many relationships among plants and people that grow from the farm.
During the academic year, students host workdays, harvest and process the seeds, and continue to work with community partners on a variety of research projects. The work and research of the farm is shared at conferences, in print, and through social and multimedia platforms.
A vibrant ecosystem of relationships makes our work possible. We are grateful for our collaborations with many generous people and organizations including our community partners: the Experimental Farm Network, Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm, Native Roots Farm Foundation, the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, and the Utopian Seed Project. The farm is located at the Stony Ford Research Station, a center for local, ecological research that is managed by the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University.
Projects
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The Story Garden
Internship Program
Service Focus
African-Crops Polyculture
Container Mutualisms
Drought Microbiome
Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project
Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn
Maycock and Nanticoke SquashCommunity
Community PartnerBonnetta Adeeb
FacultyBarron Bixler
FacultyJonathan Conway
CaretakerBilly Craigens
DirectorTessa Lowinske Desmond
Community PartnerNate Kleinman
MentorMatt Lynn
Community PartnerTomia MacQueen
Community PartnerChief Vincent Mann
Community PartnerScott Morgan
Community PartnerClanmother Michaeline Picaro
FacultySarah Rivett
FacultyDaniel Rubenstein
Community PartnerChris Smith
Community PartnerCourtney Streett
Project SpecialistGina Talt
StudentKelly To ’26
StudentDash Pai ’26
StudentNoemie Veillette ’26
StudentCaroline Brown ’27
FarmerMichelle Nowak
StudentRio Baran ’25
Community Partner
Bonnetta Adeeb
Co-Founder and Co-Director, Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance
Bonnetta Adeeb is the President of Steam Onward, Inc., an organization dedicated to increasing the number of minority and under-served youth pursuing higher education in STEM related fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In 2020, Adeeb founded the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (UCFA), a collective of emergent and seasoned BIPOC growers, farmers, and gardeners who cultivate and distribute heirloom seeds as well as grow culturally meaningful crops for food, healing, and textiles. Support UCFA by purchasing UJAMAA SEEDS at ujamaaseeds.com.
Life mission in five words? A garden in every yard.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Collards and African peas
What places do you call home? The Carolinas, California, and the Motherland
Faculty
Barron Bixler
Art and Media Specialist, Effron Center for the Study of America, Princeton University
Barron Bixler is a social-environmental documentary photographer, writer and designer. He holds an appointment as Art and Media Specialist at Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute and is Creative Director of Blue Lab at Princeton.
At the Seed Farm, Barron has been spearheading multimedia documentary and creative projects for our community, as well as providing mentorship on the Seed Farm’s various storytelling experiments. In his other work, Barron has chronicled a range of environmental problems—from water and wildfire in the American West to commercial fishing in Brazil and anti-GMO seed activism in Hawai’i.
Life mission in five words? Make something beautiful, then let go.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Eriogonum fasciculatum (California buckwheat)
What places do you call home? California’s central and northern coasts, some of New Jersey
Email:bixler@princeton.edu
Faculty
Jonathan Conway
Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University
Jonathan Conway grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a major center of farming and agricultural production in the state and region. He holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University, and joined the Princeton faculty in 2021 in the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He is an expert in plant-microbe interactions and works at the interface of chemistry, biology, and engineering. He and his lab group analyze the genetics, chemical signaling, and systems biology of the interactions between plants and their microbiomes (the microbes in, on, and around them). Their goal is to utilize this understanding to deploy beneficial microbes for improved plant growth, resilience, and productivity.
Life mission in five words? To understand plant-microbe interactions and utilize them for a healthier planet
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress)
What places do you call home? Princeton, NJ & Lancaster, PA
Caretaker
Billy Craigens
Life mission in five words? Help people as best I can.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Turnip
What places do you call home? Lawrenceville, New Jersey
Something else that’s unique! Born in Scotland.Raised by Irish.Married to an American! Lifelong Glasgow Celtic fan.
Director
Tessa Lowinske Desmond
Research Specialist, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Director, The Seed Farm at Princeton
Co-Lead, Princeton Food Project
Co-PI, The Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project
Tessa Lowinske Desmond is a scholar and a farmer. She is a research specialist focusing on food and agriculture at Princeton University in the School of Public and International Affairs. She is an oral historian specializing in community-engaged scholarship and teaching. She also manages two farms, one on campus and one where she lives.
Desmond earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she was trained as a literary critic with special emphasis on stories of race and diaspora. Desmond’s work is interdisciplinary, using the tools of oral history as well as literary and narrative analysis to document the ways in which food and farming serve as carriers of culture and to understand the role that food has played in racial, ethnic, and social identity for generations. Much of Desmond’s current work deals specifically with seeds, seed stories, and the way that narratives attached to seeds carry history and important cultural lessons.
Desmond directs The Seed Farm at Princeton, co-leads the Princeton Food Project, and serves as Co-Principal Investigator for the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project. She is a founding member of the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance and serves on the boards of Native Roots Farm Foundation. She has received awards for exemplary teaching and community-engaged scholarship.
Life mission in five words? Love others. Seed joy. Share in community.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherries
What places do you call home? New Ulm, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; Phoenix, Arizona; and Hopewell, New Jersey
Email:tdesmond@princeton.edu
Community Partner
Nate Kleinman
Co-founder/Co-director, Experimental Farm Network
Seed & farming operations with Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance. Graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Former political and labor organizer. Farmer, plant breeder, activist.
- Co-director, Experimental Farm Network (www.EFNseeds.com, @experimentalfarmnetwork)
- Administrative team, Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (www.UjamaaSeeds.com)
- Board member, Philadelphia Orchard Project (www.PhillyOrchards.org)
- Board member, Northeast Organic Farming Association of NJ (www.nofanj.org)
Life mission in five words? Don’t sweat the small stuff. (Except seeds!)
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
What places do you call home? Elmer, NJ (literal). Philadelphia (natal). Poconos, Catskills, Hudson Valley (spiritual). Leiden, Riomaggiore, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ann Arbor (occasional). Odesa, Ukraine; Bobr, Belarus; Raducaneni, Romania (ancestral). Mid-Coast Maine (aspirational).
Mentor
Matt Lynn
Associate Director of Engaged Pedagogy, Pace Center for Civic Engagement, Princeton University
During my professional career, I have sought ways to dedicate myself to a life of service, and I continually reflect on what that means. After I graduated college from Furman University, I became an education volunteer with the Peace Corps in Bolivia and remained in South America for fourteen years. During my time there, I held a variety of roles in several organizations—I worked for the Peace Corps and trained newly arrived volunteers, I directed a small non-profit organization dedicated to literacy and indigenous rights, and I led experiential gap year programs for high school and college students. In 2016 I earned my master’s degree in peacebuilding and conflict transformation and I am passionate about the ways dialogue and education can lead to peace and justice. I first came to Princeton in 2019 as assistant director of the Novogratz Bridge Year Program, a program focused on global community engagement, and love thinking about global-local connections. Now I work in the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, where I have the pleasure to work alongside students and community partners who are passionate about making the world a better place. I am an amateur home gardener and proudly come from a long line of farmers.
Life mission in five words? to co-create communities that run on love and justice
What is a seed folks should ask you about? pecans
What places do you call home? new jersey (i guess), the bolivian andes, and south carolina
Community Partner
Tomia MacQueen
Educator, Farmer and Master Gardener, Wildflower Farm NJ
Tomia MacQueen is an Educator (BA) of 19 years, Farmer and Master Gardener specializing in edible gardens. She is the owner of Wildflower Farm and the Founder of Dance for LIFE (Love, Inspiration, Faith and Empowerment) and Gardening for LIFE. Tomia has been an Edible Gardens Consultant for 15 years, and has been in Dance Ministry for 14 years.
Tomia is a Board member at Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space (FoHVOS), a Board member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association New Jersey (NOFA-NJ, and a member of Governance for the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance where she is also Lead for the Value-Added Working Group and a member seed grower.
She partners with local organizations and schools as a featured Farmer/Mentor within youth and young adult programs such as the Outdoor Equity Alliance Agrihood Program and the Princeton University Seed Farm and others.
Tomia dedicates herself to imparting healthy habits and positive body image to both her dance and gardening students, and to closing food security gaps through education. When she is not in her family gardens, out caring for their animals, dancing or teaching, Tomia enjoys cooking, canning, horseback riding, sports, spending time with her family and, of course, a very good book.
Wildflower Farm sustainably produces organically and ethically raised pastured and free range poultry, lamb, vegetables with a truly unique focus on humane animal husbandry policies and conservation practices. Wildflower Farm also is host to Educational Sustainability and Homesteading workshops for adults and children.Life mission in five words? “If you cannot feed yourself are you really free?” – Tomia
What is a seed folks should ask you about? The Mbombo bean
What places do you call home? Pennington, NJ / Detroit, MI / Devon, UK
Something else that’s unique! “Working in symbiosis with the land has always been our best chance of survival.” – Tomia
Community Partner
Chief Vincent Mann
Turtle Clan Chief, The Ramapough Lenape Nation
Chief Mann is the Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, which encompasses Passaic County NJ, Warwick, and surrounding areas in New York.
The Ramapough Lenape Nation encompasses Passaic County NJ, as well as Warwick and surrounding areas in NY. Chief Mann received the Russ Berrie Foundation’s highest award for being an unsung hero for his efforts, together with his community, to fight back after the Ford toxic dumping. Working with the NYU Institute of Environmental Medicine, he helped create a community health survey, and he has been at the forefront of protecting the drinking water used by four million people, as well as working in the area surrounding the Ringwood Mines Superfund site, formerly as a member of the Citizen Advisory Group. He also serves on the Legacy Council of the Highlands Coalition. Chief Mann is also working to rebuild a church founded by Samuel Defreese, a Ramapough, and now listed on the National Historic Registry as a Historic Native American Church — one of the two churches the Ramapough communities attend. He has been a guest speaker at Ramapo College in the Environmental Masters Program on pipelines and environmental justice and the University of Dayton in Ohio on the effects of toxic dumping on his people. As an advocate for cultural and environmental issues, he continues to this day to offer up prayers for humanity and for our natural environment.
Community Partner
Scott Morgan
Morganics Family Farm
Scott started farming at the beginning of the millennium. He has grown greens, veggies, grains and a family. He currently grows at his home, Morganics Family Farm, in Hillsborough NJ. He has help running the farm from his wife Alison, who is an acupuncturist, and their three kids. On the farm he grows several grain crops and runs and a small grain milling operation.
Life mission in five words? Feeding people Fresh wholesome Food, Community, Family!
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Einkorn Wheat
What places do you call home? Our Farm in Hillsbough NJ
Something else that’s unique! The seed farm is place of amazing energy and enthusiasm. It has been a joy working with the team in these foundational times.
Community Partner
Clanmother Michaeline Picaro
Turtle Clan Clanmother, Ramapough Lenape Nation
Michaeline Picaro is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation and has recently organized a new community garden space in Northern New Jersey with her community. She is a mother, artist, nurse, and healer. Her concern for the effects of industry and the depletion of farming fields on the environment has forwarded her interest in plants in terms of whole systems approaches to community farming as well as holistic health, wellness, and spiritual connectivity. Picaro’s nursing, holistic/energy healing, and art backgrounds have allowed her to experience different modes of thinking in terms of healing and education and encouraged her continuing journey with natural medicine for healing and food foraging. Her work stems from early native medicinal teachings from her father combined with spiritual teachings from being and sitting with nature at an early age. These teachings became a way of life, including the daily connection of listening, watching and practice of all that Mother Earth teaches.
Faculty
Sarah Rivett
Professor of English and American Studies, Princeton University
Sarah Rivett is a Professor of English and American Studies at Princeton University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar, specializing in early American and transatlantic literature, religion, and indigenous history. Her current research and teaching strive to recover voices, lands, and stories of the past that have been erased or obscured by settler colonialism. She seeks to understand how settler, African American, and Indigenous histories intersected and to do the necessary reparative work around the violence of the past. Her current book, Raven’s Land: Story, Time, and History in North America, uses raven stories as a model for a new kind of literary history, one that presents an alternate paradigm to origins stories.
She is the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England (2011), which was awarded the Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History. The Science of the Soul explores intersections between the scientific revolution and the rise of Protestantism in Anglo America. Her second book, Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of Literary Nation (2017), explores the impact of colonial language encounters between indigenous and European populations on Enlightenment language philosophy and early American literary history from the mid-seventeenth century through the 1820s. She has also published essays, reviews, and articles on a range of topics including religion, witchcraft, Enlightenment, and colonial-Indigenous encounters.
Email:srivett@princeton.edu
Faculty
Daniel Rubenstein
Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
Dan Rubenstein is a behavioral ecologist who studies how environmental variation and individual differences shape social behavior, social structure, sex roles and the dynamics of populations. He has special interests in all species of wild horses, zebras, and asses, and has done field work on them throughout the world identifying rules governing decision-making, the emergence of complex behavioral patterns and how these understandings influence their management and conservation. In Kenya he also works with pastoral communities to develop and assess impacts of various grazing strategies on rangeland quality, wildlife use and livelihoods. Because his animals are considered vermin in the eyes of pastoralists since they eat the grass that pastoralists believe should be in the bellies of their livestock, his research began to focus on reducing human-wildlife conflict. And that led him into studying livestock and crop agriculture, the latter because upstream crop farmers abstract the water that pastoralists believe should be available for their livestock. He has also developed a scout program for gathering data on Grevy’s zebras and created curricular modules for local schools to raise awareness about the plight of this endangered species. He engages people as ‘Citizen Scientists’ and has recently extended his work to measuring the effects of environmental change, including issues pertaining to the global commons and changes wrought by management and by global warming, on behavior.
Rubenstein is the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology at Princeton University. He is former Chair of Princeton University’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and has served as Director of Princeton’s Programs in African Studies and in Environmental Studies. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1972 and his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1977 before receiving NSF-NATO and King’s College Junior Research Fellowships for post-doctoral studies at Cambridge University. As the Eastman Professor, he spent a year in Oxford as a Fellow of Balliol College. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and he has recently completed his term as president of the Animal Behavior Society and now serves on the AAAS and Ecological Society Councils as well as on the board of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Honor Research Society. He has also recently received the Animal Behavior Society’s Exemplar award and the Sigma Xi Honor Society’s McGovern Science & Society Award.
Life mission in five words? Create knowledge for environmental and social good.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? How do heirloom seeds solve problems that modern variants don’t.
What places do you call home? Pennington, NJ and Mpala Research Center, Kenya
Email:dir@princeton.edu
Community Partner
Chris Smith
Executive Director, Utopian Seed Project
Chris Smith is the executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, a research focused non-profit working to support climate resilient food and farming through crop and varietal diversity. Within this work, he collaborates on the Heirloom Collard Project, hosts a seasonal Trial to Table event series, and manages Crop Stories, a crop specific multimedia project. Chris is enthusiastic about okra: His book, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020 and he is co-host of The Okra Pod Cast. On a hyper-local level, Chris is nurturing his two young children, a sprawling home garden, and manages the Leicester Library Giving Garden, which he helped found in 2021. In his spare time Chris enjoys writing, he completed an MA in Creative Writing and has published both fiction and non-fiction in local and national presses. More info at blueandyellomakes.com and utopianseed.org
Life mission in five words? Eat more okra and collards!
What is a seed folks should ask you about? The ones yet to be created.
What places do you call home? North Western England / Western North Carolina
Community Partner
Courtney Streett
President and Executive Director, Native Roots Farm Foundation
Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF) is a Native, woman-led nonprofit organization that reunites Native people with aspects of our heritage and shares this knowledge with the wider community through original, hands-on, educational initiatives. Our programs use art, food, and horticulture to highlight native plants, recognize Native resilience and knowledge, and encourage connections with the natural world.
Life mission in five words? Plant to take over the world (revising Pinky & The Brain)
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Chàkinkwèm (Lenape for Pokeweed)
What places do you call home? Wilmington, DE & Brooklyn, NY
Project Specialist
Gina Talt
Food Systems Project Specialist, Office of Sustainability, Princeton University
After having majored in economics at Princeton, Gina now finds herself getting her hands dirty overseeing composting and other applied sustainability efforts at her alma mater. Gina currently assists with farm logistics and research at the Seed Farm after having been inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” and wanting to engage in initiatives around reciprocity and mutualism, as embodied in the Three Sisters.
Life mission in five words? To promote a more circular, equitable, and ecological-based food system
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Still searching for one that truly speaks to me!
What places do you call home? Mamaroneck, NY
Something else that’s unique! In her spare time, Gina enjoys being a regular at farmers’ markets, cooking, running, and watching her favorite (New York) sports teams.
Student
Kelly To ’26
Seed Farm Intern 2024
Social Media Manager 2024 – presentLife mission in five words? Ensure everyone has good food
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Lenape Corn
What places do you call home? Princeton, NJ and Colorado Springs, CO
Student
Dash Pai ’26
Service Focus Food Justice & Sustainability Fellow
Life mission in five words? Uplift others, eat good food
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Mustard seed
What places do you call home? Phoenix, AZ
Student
Noemie Veillette ’26
Service Focus Food Justice & Sustainability Fellow
Life mission in five words? Set your soul on fire
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Strawberry
What places do you call home? Portland, Oregon
Student
Caroline Brown ’27
Desmond Lab Intern 2024
Student Researcher 2024-presentLife mission in five words? Make people smile, gods wag, and plant grow!
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Nanticoke Squash
What places do you call home? Boston, Massachusetts
Farmer
Michelle Nowak
Farmer at the Princeton Seed Farm
Michelle has worked at farms and school gardens since 2002, including managing organic produce farms in Maryland and Ohio for five years each, plus shorter stints at farms in upstate New York, New Hampshire, and Germany. She moved to Princeton in 2024 with her bat biologist husband, Gerry and two young children, Jay and Maple.
Life mission in five words? Enjoy each moment together
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Collards – I’ve been taking care of the collards for the collards ultra cross project and I’m excited about some of the beautiful colors and shapes we’re seeing in the plants. Plus collards are one of my favorite foods to eat.
What places do you call home? I’m originally from Indiana, PA, have lived in a handful of different states as well as Panama, Mexico, and Germany. Each one carries special memories. I’m grateful to now call Princeton my long-term home.
Student
Rio Baran ’25
Service Focus Senior Fellow 2024-2025
Desmond Lab Summer Team Lead 2025Life mission in five words? Learn from the world’s beauty
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Thai Chili pepper
What places do you call home? Middletown, MD and Princeton, NJ
Alumni
StudentAnupta Argo ’26
StudentBrooke Beers ’25
StudentRiyan Charania ’26
StudentAmelia Clarke ’26
StudentJessica Cui ’24
StudentSava Evangelista ’26
StudentSimon Gotera ’25
StudentAlliyah Gregory ’25
StudentNoe Iwasaki ’26
StudentVictoria Koretsky ’26
StudentMadison Mellinger ’23
StudentJules Mpano ’26
StudentMandy Qua ’23
StudentLiam Seeley ’23
StudentEmma Smithwick ’26
StudentSarina Wen ’27
StudentNatalie Wong ’25
StudentCole Strupp ’26
StudentCarter McLean ’27
MentorKatie Rohrbaugh ’24
StudentEdalix Marin ’27
StudentStephenie Chen ’25
StudentAkhila Bandlora ’24
StudentIan Accetta ’24
Student
Anupta Argo ’26
Desmond Lab intern 2023, Logistics Lead
Life mission in five words? Having fun, chilling, and smiling
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Wisteria seeds
What places do you call home? Princeton, Philadelphia, Bangladesh.
Student
Brooke Beers ’25
Rubenstein Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Find joy in simple moments
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Corn.
What places do you call home? Florida
Something else that’s unique! I have a secret talent for impersonating various animal sounds, and my squirrel impression has been known to confuse real squirrels in the park.
Student
Riyan Charania ’26
Rubinstein Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Laughing through our life adventures
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Sweet Potatoes
What places do you call home? Anywhere the homies are at.
Student
Amelia Clarke ’26
Desmond Lab Intern 2023, Communications and Media lead
Life mission in five words? Always better today than yesterday
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Accomack broccoli
What places do you call home? Huntsville, AL, Chelsea, London and Llandogo, Wales.
Student
Jessica Cui ’24
Life mission in five words? Good food available for all
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Black sesame, okra, peach pits 💞
What places do you call home? Charlotte, NC
Student
Sava Evangelista ’26
Conway Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Get amazing at video games
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Arabidopsis
What places do you call home? Wherever my gaming setup is
Something else that’s unique! I don’t like bugs!
Student
Simon Gotera ’25
Logistical Lead, Seed Lover
Life mission in five words? Concentrating the power of few for change
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Plantain seeds
What places do you call home? Miami, South Florida, Venezuela, the World, Princeton
Something else that’s unique! Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Engineer, Farmer, SIFPeep, Roboticist
Student
Alliyah Gregory ’25
Conway Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Make the world more beautiful!
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Okra
What places do you call home? Westminster, MD & Terra Alta, WV
Something else that’s unique! I love almond butter!
Student
Noe Iwasaki ’26
Conway Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Have a grand ole time
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Bitter melon
What places do you call home? Ise Bay, Japan.
Something else that’s unique! I have a dent in my forehead
Student
Victoria Koretsky ’26
Desmond Lab Intern 2023, Heirloom Gardens Intern
Life mission in five words? Create, find, and bring joy
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Taro!
What places do you call home? Rockville, Maryland
Student
Madison Mellinger ’23
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Life mission in five words? “I store my meat in the belly of my brother.” -Brazilian hunter quoted in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Serviceberry” essay
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Black raspberries
What places do you call home? Chambersburg, PA/Appalachia
Student
Jules Mpano ’26
Desmond Lab intern 2023, Doer/Maker team
Life mission in five words? Enable it – Model it – Embrace it
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Sorghum
What places do you call home? Kigali, Rwanda
Something else that’s unique! I hate taking pictures!
Student
Mandy Qua ’23
I love to dance, cook with family & friends, eat good food (especially tropical fruits!), and to be around nature 😀
Life mission in five words? favoring faith • cultivating community • pursuing peace
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Glutinous rice!
What places do you call home? Manila, Philippines
Student
Liam Seeley ’23
Spanish & Portuguese
Life mission in five words? Being a tender & committed human
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Sorrel
What places do you call home? Rochester, NY
Student
Emma Smithwick ’26
Desmond Lab intern 2023, Doer/Maker team
Life mission in five words? Live simply and speak kindly
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Munsee White Corn
What places do you call home? Collingswood, NJ
Student
Sarina Wen ’27
Conway Lab intern 2023
Life mission in five words? Do what I love, always.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Arabidopsis
What places do you call home? Cape May, New Jersey
Something else that’s unique! Coffee enthusiast
Student
Natalie Wong ’25
Rubenstein Lab intern 2023
Life mission in around five words? Put people and the planet first
What is a seed that folks should ask you about? Pole beans and okra!
What places do you call home? Farmington, CT and Princeton, NJ
Student
Cole Strupp ’26
Service Focus Cohort Member 2023-2024
Life mission in five words? Always offer a helping hand
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Bees
What places do you call home? Maplewood, NJ and Asbury Park, NJ
Student
Carter McLean ’27
Desmond Lab Summer Intern 2024
Service Focus Cohort Member 2024-2025Life mission in five words? Make time to touch grass
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Jerusalem artichoke
What places do you call home? Baton Rouge, LA
Mentor
Katie Rohrbaugh ’24
Desmond Lab Summer Team Lead 2024
Life mission in five words? Food sovereignty and silly adventures
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Vanda Miss Joaquim
What places do you call home? Orlando, Princeton, NYC, Maryland
I am an alumni in the history department. I studied British colonial environmental history, hoping to understand the role of colonialism in shaping how people think about the environment. I am continuing my studies at Cornell, pursuing a PhD in Soil and Crop Sciences. I plan to research how farmers experiments with and implement regenerative agricultural techniques in collaboration with universities and research institutions. I am passionate about food sovereignty and decolonizing the environment in the US and abroad.
Student
Edalix Marin ’27
Rubenstein Lab intern 2024
Service Focus Cohort Member 2024-2025Life mission in five words? Seeking to learn through humility
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Cariaco corn
What places do you call home? North Bergen, NJ | Cali, Columbia | San Cristobal, Venezuela | Princeton, NJ
Student
Stephenie Chen ’25
Desmond Lab Intern 2023, Communications lead
Life mission in five words? Live committed to love
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Garlic!
What places do you call home? Hong Kong, Beijing, Princeton.
Student
Akhila Bandlora ’24
Life mission in five words? Center joy, & everything else will follow.
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Hollyhock
What places do you call home? Phoenix, AZ; Princeton, NJ
Student
Ian Accetta ’24
Desmond Lab intern 2023, Logistics lead
Life mission in five words? Make art and stay outside
What is a seed folks should ask you about? Tomato!
What places do you call home? Princeton, NJ and Woodstock, NY.
The Seed Farm is supported by the following Princeton University offices:
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- High Meadows Environmental Institute
- High Meadows Foundation Sustainability Fund
- Land, Language, and Art: A Humanities Council Global Initiative
- Program on Community Engaged Scholarship (ProCES)
- Pace Center for Community Engagement
- Office of Sustainability Campus as Lab Program
- School of Public and International Affairs
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