Taro Ietaka has been an environmental educator and land manager with Westchester County Parks, Recreation and Conservation since 2002. He started his career at Trailside and has since been at Cranberry Lake Preserve, Mountain Lakes Park, and, now, Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.
Bobby began his career at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in 1978, making him the park’s longest serving employee. He started as a laborer but is now the assistant facility manager and de facto historian. If you are making a camping reservation, Bobby will likely be the one to help.
I am Danniela Ciatto, the Curator of Trailside Nature Museum. I have been working with the Westchester County Parks Department for over 20 years and been at Trailside for five years. It is one of the most beautiful parks I have worked at! I got my B.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Maine. I love teaching children about nature as well as planning family friendly events. Stop by the museum and see all the things we have going on!
Hayley Lewis is a full-time hourly staff member at the Reservation, spending most of her time as an assistant curator at the Trailside Nature Museum at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. Before joining the Reservation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from PACE University, where she worked at the PACE Nature Center for most of her undergraduate career. In her 4 years at the Reservation, she has spent time hosting school and weekend programs at the Nature Museum, working the summer camp on site, maintaining the Reservation nest monitor program, and piloting new community science initiatives within the county for monitoring cavity-nesting songbirds. Hayley has a passion for conservation and education that she pursues heavily through her work within the county parks system, and she continues to expand her abilities through her current Master’s program. Her capstone is a subject she is particularly passionate about: exploring and implementing new opportunities to build environmental literacy within her community. Hayley’s favorite program at Trailside has been the Museum’s maple sugaring events.
Leah Cass is the Curator of Natural Resources, working out of the Wildlife and Natural Resources Office at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. There, Leah works on a variety of conservation, research, and land management related projects. Most notably, she oversees the County’s turtle conservation initiative, and directs Ward Pound Ridge Reservation’s college internship in natural resources conservation. She first joined the staff at WPRR as a Naturalist at Trailside Nature Museum in 2021. Leah holds a B.S. in Biology from George Washington University and a M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Pace University.
Samantha Cronk is the Natural Resource Technician for the Westchester County Parks and holds a master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Pace University. She began as an intern in the Natural Resources office in 2024, before being hired full-time. Samantha has contributed to a variety of conservation projects and ecological research. She focuses a lot of her time on studying local bat populations using acoustic monitoring, with the primary goal of increasing detections of species of special concern. She is also monitoring the North American river otter population in the Reservation, looking at their movement through the park and population size.
