The Core of Chestnut School

Juliet is a card-carrying plant geek who channels her plant obsessions through writing, photography, and herb gardening, along with a sizable houseplant predilection. She is an ambitious entrepreneur—her earliest enterprise was a get-rich-quick-scheme involving papaya trees (a monumental flop, on all accounts). Juliet’s been sharing her passion for plants for over twenty-five years, and has owned just about every type of herbal business you can imagine: an herbal nursery, a medicinal products business, a clinical practice, and now, an herbal school. After graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in botany, Juliet continued her studies by attending programs at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine, the California School of Herbal Studies, and the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. Her herbal teachers and lineage include 7Song, James Snow, and the legendary herbalist Michael Moore, now an ancestor.

Born in New York, NY, and raised in the shadow of the Ramapo Mountains, Amanda brings a thoughtful blend of technology and design with a commitment to accessible and inclusive user experiences.

She is a lifelong learner with a deep appreciation for plant-based living, movement, and contributing to a mission that empowers people to grow and create their own medicine.

Amanda currently lives in Metro Detroit, on the ancestral land of the Anishinaabe people, with her rescue pup, Langston. While she enjoys the energy of city life, she feels most at home among trees and quiet green spaces.

Amara grew up in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, spending every minute outside with the magical and harsh environment of the desert southwest. She studied at Northern Arizona University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Biology with an emphasis in botany in 2018, and has been studying herbal medicine ever since. Her botanical adventures led her to a permaculture farm internship in the Andean Mountains of Peru, where she studied farming, herbal medicine, cultural ceremonies, and community outreach alongside generational farmers and healers.

Her passion for herbal medicine includes tending medicinal herbs, both cultivated and wild, making potent creations to share with her community, teaching at local herbal events, and being part of a larger online community where she can share her knowledge and wisdom about the plants and their wonderful gifts.

When she’s not supporting the amazing students at Chestnut, you can find her with her partner and her two children on their 5-acre off-grid homestead nestled in the expansive Ponderosa pine forest of Northern Arizona; often gardening, swimming in wild waters, tending to her chickens, and communing with the diverse botanical world around her.

Carrie has spent much of her life moving between places, shaping a perspective rooted in curiosity and close observation. She brings a careful, intentional approach to design, informed by a deep love of music, the arts, and visual storytelling.

She’s especially drawn to the overlap between creativity and the natural world, with interests in herbalism, natural dyeing, and printmaking. She enjoys working both digitally and by hand, and is happiest when she’s making something that feels expressive and grounded in process.

Carrie lives and works on the ancestral lands of the Saura (Cheraw) people and honors the many Indigenous communities who have stewarded this region, past and present.

Christine grew up in suburban Chicago playing in the seemingly expansive woods behind her childhood home. She fell deeper in love with the magic of the natural world as a teenager while participating in wilderness backpacking trips. This love of nature led her to sustainable agriculture work on organic farms in Alaska, Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, and Washington. Christine studied at the Chestnut School in 2013 and is thrilled to be back as a part of the Chestnut team to support our students in their herbal learning. Christine currently resides in the magical driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin, the ancestral land of the Ho Chunk Nation, with her partner, children, and wild rescue pup. They dream of creating an abundant homestead with animals and all kinds of edible and medicinal plants in the near future.

Melissa is a lifelong student of plants and has been actively studying herbal medicine since 2010. She trained at the Forager’s Path School of Botanical Medicine with herbalist Mike Masek and spent nearly a decade apprenticing with Southwestern herbalist and ethnobotanist Phyllis Hogan.

Her work is rooted in time spent with plants in both cultivated and wild landscapes. She loves gardening, walking, and whispering sweet nothings to ephemeral blossoms. She is passionate about sharing the empowering wisdom of plant medicine and supporting Chestnut students as they grow in their herbal studies.