Mary Wilde and her family have owned on Seabrook Island since 2010. Like many, they came for a family vacation years earlier and never forgot it. Mary loved all the focus on the environment and the diverse non-human inhabitants, and was fascinated by the many interesting ecosystems in a small area. She now toggles back and forth between Princeton NJ and Seabrook.
Born and raised in rural Northern Michigan (10 miles south of the Machinaw Bridge). She went to college on the US-Canadian border where she trained as a Medical Technologist, first working in the laboratory at the A.I. Dupont Institute outside Wilmington DE. She returned to graduate school and completed a PhD in Cell Biology at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Her postdoctoral work continued in the field of cellular communication at the Penn Medical School and was followed by work at Bristol Myers Squibb for a few years in basic pharmaceutical research.
Mary’s husband Mark worked in NYC for many years and recently retired. She hasn’t yet been successful in getting him into birds but she continues to try! They have three grown children who live in Chicago, Bucks County PA and Austin TX , and three grandchildren have recently been added to the mix.
After stepping out of full-time research Mary has tutored high school students, volunteered at church, and worked with the Education Department at the Watershed Institute in Hopewell, NJ. The Institute is involved in environmental advocacy, scientific analysis of water quality, conservation and environmental education for school age children.
Mary calls herself a novice birder and loves every minute she’s out with SIB participants. “I see something new and learn something new with every outing and event. Recently we went over to Kiawah Estates to bird and in a short period of time located 47 different species. AMAZING!”
Mary got involved with SIB during Covid when the group made programs and movies available via Zoom. She joined the SIB board about 3 years ago as an assistant to Ed Konrad who had been managing the scheduling of programs on his own. Currently she serves on the BOD in Programs with Alan Fink as Ed and Aija Konrad moved off the island.
“I help identify speakers for our evening programs so members and guests continue to learn about birds and the conservation required to support them. The folks I’ve met through SIB have been terrific. Birding allows me to continue to be a scientist, outdoors, not in the lab anymore.”
She began learning about birds as a child as her family always had feeders and fed them through the cold Northern Michigan winters.
In addition to learning to bird, she and her husband travel a lot …..having visited many countries in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa, Central America and Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and Uruguay in South America. “I love to garden and am learning new skills around what grows in the Seabrook climate. When I have free time, I also enjoy both reading, I’ve been a participant in a book club for many years, and taking part in group exercise classes.”