Zya S. Levy

Zya S. Levy is a botanist, artist, explorer and environmental educator based in Philadelphia. Growing up in the forests of Northern California, the daughter of a forester and a botanist, she fell in love with plants at an early age. Through her work and art she hopes to knit tangible relationships between people and natural world through sensory experiences, traditional craft and storytelling. She received her bachelor’s degree in botany from Humboldt State University, and has over ten years of experience working with North American flora as a field botanist for the USDA. She is a student of western herbalism and has done many international trips to investigate world ethno-botany. Zya is the founder of the Collecting Collective and the Investigative Institute of the Wild, which hosts field trips, workshops and crafts botanical elixirs.