TBI Staff Members

Jennifer Smith-Lee - Executive Director

Long interested in both Russia and cultural influences on environmental issues, Jennifer graduated from the University of Vermont in 1999 with a double major in Russian language and Environmental Studies. A recipient of an IREX Young Leaders for Public Service Fellowship, Jennifer lived in Russia and studied environmental protection at Irkutsk State Technical University in 2001-2002. During her year in Irkutsk, she volunteered at Baikal Environmental Wave and led a summer ecology camp for local children. She has also taught environmental education for American middle school students in Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Akron, Ohio), and worked for a year in Washington D.C. writing Environmental Impact Statements for a government contractor. In May 2004, she received an MS in Natural Resources and Environment and an MA in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan.  Her graduate research focused on environmental perceptions and attitudes in the Lake Baikal region.  From late 2005 through the end of 2008, Jennifer was the Programs Director for TBI, managing all aspects of the Summer Environmental Exchange.  She became the Executive Director in 2009.

Sarah Buck - Programs Director

Sarah is a recent graduate of Middlebury College where she majored in International Studies with a concentration in Spanish, Western Europe, and Hispanic literature and culture. She also received two minors, one in Political Science and the other in Russian. Sarah was a SEE participant in summer 2009, and her experiences during the program with watershed conservation and cultural exchange in both Tahoe and Baikal were extremely eye opening and completely changed her career path. Since then she has worked with a couple other non-profit organizations including Breakthrough Atlanta, where she taught math and Spanish to underprivileged inner city Middle school students, and MassPIRG, where she worked as a campus organizer. Sarah loves to ski, hike, play rugby, cook, travel, study and interact with other cultures, and spend time on the lake (of course), which she has done since childhood where she grew up in New Hampshire. She has lived abroad in Spanish wine country and in Siberia (during the SEE program) and has also traveled to Mexico, Aruba, the Bahamas, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Foreign cultures, the environment, and the impact they have on one another fascinate her, and one day she would like to run a non-profit dedicated to community-based conservation and indigenous population preservation. Sarah is ecstatic to be back in Tahoe, working to make the SEE program and TBI’s other programming as effective and meaningful to future generations as it was to her, and also to continue her learning and perfecting of the Russian language!

Adam Zeender - Education Programs Assistant, Sierra Nevada AmeriCorps Member

Adam will be serving as the SNAP AmeriCorps member at TBI for 2011.  He grew up in Connecticut and graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in Environmental Science.  After graduating, Adam moved to Camp Crook, SD (population 52) to work for the US Forest Service.  After six months, he realized that he wanted to spend more time interacting with people.  So he returned to the East coast where he worked as an Environmental Educator at both Nature’s Classroom and the Berkshire Outdoor Center.  He also worked as a ski instructor and lead trips for teens in the summer time.  Adam spent last winter in South Lake Tahoe and is excited to be back again for a whole year.