- Profile
- Born and raised on the southern coast of Long Island, Sam’s interest in the natural world was nurtured from an early age. With a chemistry teacher and a middle school science teacher for parents, their version of children’s programming was BBC wildlife specials and Bill Nye the Science Guy, and later summer camp became dropping him off in the marshes with a fishing pole and sunscreen. His first contact with conservation came at age 8, when his father and his father's students were helping build oyster beds to help repopulate Oyster Bay with healthy oysters to help clean up the Long Island sound. Through high school, the natural world took a back seat to sports and music. However, in his first year at the University at Albany an anthropology professor suggested a primatology field school in Costa Rica, and since then, he’s traveled to Indonesia, Panama and eventually back to Costa Rica to work and volunteer on conservation projects. By a chance encounter with a general education journalism class at UAlbany, Sam discovered his passion for writing and furthered his training in journalism and photography, documenting endangered and threatened species all over the globe. Sam currently lives in Long Beach, New York, where he still enjoys playing music and fishing with his friends and family.