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Faculty and Staff

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Michelle Prysby

VMN Program Director

mprysby@vt.edu
434-872-4571

Michelle helped launch the Virginia Master Naturalist program in 2005 and served as the statewide coordinator until 2012. She returned in 2014 to serve as the Special Projects Coordinator, and became the director of the program in 2015.

She is a Senior Extension Specialist faculty member in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech, but her office is in Charlottesville. She provides assistance to the state’s 30 VMN chapters; teaches basic and continuing education courses; leads development of new training resources and program initiatives; and engages with sponsoring agencies, partnering organizations, and national organizations to support the program’s mission.

Michelle loves working with the amazing cadre of VMN volunteers to benefit Virginia’s natural resources. She has a particular interest in citizen science, and, as part of her Master’s research in ecology at the University of Minnesota, she started the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Michelle’s other professional roles have included Citizen Science Director at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont and Director of Science Education and Public Outreach at the University of Virginia. She is also an active Virginia Master Naturalist volunteer in the Rivanna Chapter. For her VMN volunteer service, she assists with stream cleanups in Charlottesville, monitors a site on the Virginia Bird and Wildlife Trail for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, conducts vernal pool monitoring, and gives talks on frogs and other topics for local community groups.

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Tiffany Brown

VMN Program Assistant

tiffany.brown@vt.edu
540-231-0790

Tiffany Brown is the volunteer and administrative support for the Virginia Master Naturalist Program. She serves as a liaison with volunteers by advising them on program policies and best practices, and responding to public and volunteer inquiries. Tiffany supports the VMN program by updating and maintaining program documents and assisting volunteers with the use of the online volunteer management system, Better Impact. She also handles logistics and planning for statewide and regional conferences and meetings, collects and compiles annual reports, and manages program budgets and accounts.

Tiffany works out of the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. She resides in Christiansburg with her two daughters, Amalie and River, whom she enjoys dragging out to go on adventures.

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VMN Communications and Volunteer Engagement Intern

Abigail (Abi) Mountford is the current undergraduate intern for VMN Communications and Volunteer Engagement. Abi is working on a number of different activities, including developing content for social media, collecting photos and videos to tell the story of VMN program impacts, and assisting with volunteer recognition item distribution.

Abi is a current Senior at Virginia Tech majoring in Environmental Conservation and Society with a minor in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). She describes herself as a military brat who has been fortunate enough to grow up across the globe and the United States of America. Virginia is the place she has found that feels the most like home having lived here in different areas in the state for a total time of around 7 years now. She loves getting to know more about the area around her and finding a sense of place where she is. In school, she participates in a conservation service based organization, spending her time giving back to my community in an environmentally focused way. 

Connect with Us

For general inquiries about the Virginia Master Naturalist program, please contact:


540-231-0790
Photo Credits: Eastern Screech Owl (Laura Mae, Tidewater chapter)