Dr. Cynthia Nazario-Leary is a Science Education and Training Specialist at the University of Florida Center for Precollegiate Education and Training. In this role, she coordinates and develops instructional content for various secondary student and teacher programs including the NIH SEPA funded CATALySES program (Collaborating to Advance Teaching and Learning of Science Educators and Students). Prior to her current position, she was the Community Horticulture Extension Agent for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH), in Kahului, Maui. In this position, she coordinated the Statewide and Maui Master Gardener Programs, assisted home gardeners, and supported the floriculture industry on Maui. Cynthia also administered the New Farmers Network in the Agriculture & Natural Resources program at UH Maui College where she worked to connect emerging farmers with land, and other agricultural opportunities and resources. Dr. Nazario-Leary received her B.S. in Landscape Contracting from The Pennsylvania State University. Her interest in tropical agriculture led her to the University of Hawai‘i to receive her M.S. in Horticulture where she studied propagation methods of breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis. She continued her studies at UH to complete a doctorate in Natural Resources and Environmental Management, where she researched the development of an understory native plant agroforestry system.
