Environment Program Staff

The CCEDC Environment Program has five staff members: an Environment Program Leader, a GIS Senior Resource Educator, an Environmental Educator (focusing on water issues), a Senior Administrative Assistant, and a part-time Community Educator. Our goal is to provide education and technical resources to empower individuals and municipal groups to protect, restore, and enhance the environment.  

Allison Morrill Chatrchyan
is the CCEDC Environment Program Leader. She comes to CCEDC with a broad-ranging background in the environmental field. Allison has lived in the Poughkeepsie area since 2000 – she previously worked teaching environmental policy and politics at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, and is active with the Poughkeepsie Farm Project. Allison obtained her Ph.D. in environmental politics from the University of MD College Park. Prior to graduate school, she was a program manager for the United Nations Environment Programme in France, and for the Environmental Policy Center, an environmental consulting firm in Washington, DC. She obtained her B.A. degree from Colby College in Maine, and grew up in central New York.

Neil Curri
is the Sr. GIS Resource Educator with the CCEDC Environment Program. Previously a GIS Analyst for a land management program at West Point, Neil received his Masters of Science degree in Environmental Science from the University of New Haven in 2007, where he also completed a GIS Certificate Program. His Master's thesis included a GIS analysis of stream fish communities in Connecticut and the landscape features in their surrounding watersheds. Before attending graduate school, Neil worked as a computer systems support specialist for 5 years, and brings his technical experience as well as GIS skills and environmental science training to the Environment Program.

Carolyn Klocker
is the Environmental Resource Educator for CCEDC. She received her MS degree in Environmental Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and holds a BA degree in Biology from Hiram College. Carolyn’s Master’s research focused on nitrogen cycling in urban restored and degraded streams in Baltimore, Maryland. Before working on her Master’s she spent several years working as a Research Assistant and an Ecology Educator at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY. Carolyn works with many of the county’s local watershed groups, CACs, and the Environment Program’s No Child Left Inside youth program.

Emily Vail
is the part-time Community Educator for the CCEDC Environment Program.  She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Vassar College.  Emily also works part-time as the Collins Research Fellow for the Vassar College Environmental Research Institute (ERI), coordinating collaborative research projects and outreach/education efforts focusing on watersheds.

Vicky Buono
is the Senior Administrative Assistant with the CCEDC Environment Program. A long-time resident of Hyde Park, NY, Vicky previously worked for the Dutchess County Environmental Management Council (EMC), and for the IBM Corporation in Poughkeepsie, NY for 23 years.