Emily Riley grew up on Pennsylvania State Parks as the daughter of park managers. She developed a passion for nature while hiking, canoeing, and exploring the woods, waters, meadows, and mountains in her backyard. Her love of nature led her to pursue Landscape Architecture at Penn State University, where she graduated at the top of her class. Her Schreyer Honors College thesis project on restoring community spaces in post-communist Czech Republic won an award in Landscape Architecture Magazine. Upon graduation, she honed her craft while working as a landscape designer for Wolfe Landscapes in Waco, Texas while her husband completed a Ph.D at Baylor University. Emily then moved back to the Northeast so she and her husband could serve at The Stony Brook School on the north shore of Long Island. While homeschooling four kids, Emily continued to learn about native plants and pollinators and experiment with native plant landscape design. In 2023, she was invited to redesign the green space at Stony Brook Station. That project connected her with local community members who were interested in transforming their home landscapes into natural habitats, which inspired her to launched Emily Riley Design, LLC. Emily’s passion is helping individuals and communities restore the natural habitat through ecologically sound landscape design.