Claudia is a land-based grower and medicine-maker, cultivating an intimate relationship with the landscape and people that make up her environment. She is a community organizer and professional facilitator in conflict resolution, practicing Transformative Mediation and Restorative Justice, with the goal of developing holistic alternatives to punitive isolation practices – whether suspension, incarceration or other forms of social and institutional exclusion. Claudia has known and loved the Hudson Valley her whole life and holds a fierce love for its woods, mountains and swimming holes. She has been a natural mediator since childhood and can remember advocating for classmates and family members from a very early age. In her adult life she has extensively studied and learned about plants and people and the ways in which they intersect, be it through growth, love, healing, oppression, identity or connection. She lives in Milan, NY on a 5-acre mixed forest and apple orchard.