Bridget Lawrence-Meigs grew up at Millbrook School, where her father, Jonathan, directed the Trevor Zoo and her mother, Jane, worked to educate the school and surrounding community about conservation and sustainability. Bridget received her bachelor’s degree (honors) in biology from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 2001, where she studied communication of the Black-Capped Chickadee for her undergraduate thesis project with Dr. Laurene Ratcliffe. She then traveled, volunteered, and studied Spanish in Central America before completing a master’s of professional studies in sustainable agriculture from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Her work at Cornell with Dr. James Lassoie focused on the role that school gardens can play in addressing children’s food insecurity in the Western Highlands of Guatemala.

Before coming to Fairfield Farm at The Hotchkiss School, Bridget served as farm director at Stonehill College, where she started The Farm in 2011. Throughout her 20s and 30s, she worked for organizations in Kenya, Guatemala, and California including McGill University’s Canadian Field Studies in Africa Program, Habitat for Humanity, and The FruitGuys. She has gained farming experience at Coonamessett Farm in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, The Farm Institute on Martha’s Vineyard, and from her fellow farmers in Southeastern Massachusetts and Northwestern Connecticut. She is a firm believer in travel and hands-on learning as powerful ways to interact with and learn about our planet and all its inhabitants.