Vice President, Learning and Public Programs

Jennifer Schwarz, Ph.D., serves as the vice president of learning and public programs for the Chicago Botanic Garden. In this role, she oversees adult and children’s education, community engagement, interpretation, public programs, and the Budburst community science program. 

Since starting at the Garden in 2005 as the Garden’s education manager, Schwarz has worked to ensure that in our increasingly urban world, people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds have access to green space and to high-quality nature-based education and enrichment programs, both on Garden grounds and in their own communities. She is passionate about environmental justice, the need for engagement and action focused on climate change, and the very judicious use of technology to increase access to nature.

Schwarz joined the Garden after completing her doctorate in the learning sciences at Northwestern University. Before attending graduate school, she worked for a nonprofit housing development firm to increase and improve housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income households and special-needs populations in Westchester County, N.Y., and then for a variety of nonprofits in the areas of marketing and membership development. She lives in the northern suburbs, where she spends most of her off-time growing her own gardens and looking after two precocious cats.