Raju Rajan is a technologist with a strong communitarian ethic. Since obtaining a PhD in Communication Networks at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he has enjoyed a long career as researcher and consultant. His entrepreneurial acumen has led him to found two IT start-ups as well as a number of community groups aimed at organizing people for systemic change.

 Raju is currently active with Long Island Together, a progressive collective that organizes around education, immigration and social change, as well as ReWild Long Island, where he serves as President of the Board. ReWild brings native plants to public spaces and private yards.

 An avid gardener and amateur tree-enthusiast, Raju also owns and manages Sharadavanam, a small agroforest in India dedicated to rewilding and permaculture.

Raju resides in Port Washington, NY with wife Sonia Arora, an educator & community organizer, and son Kabeera Singh, in college.

Raju is a founder of ReWild Long Island and currently serves as Board President.

Nancy Depas Reinertsen

Nancy DePas Reinertsen has always had a passion for gardening. It has been a part of her personal, academic, and professional life. She earned various educational degrees in Horticulture and Linguistics from SUNY Farmingdale, Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center. While she began a career as an interior landscaper, she later dedicated 25 years as an English teacher to immigrants at Newcomers HS and LaGuardia CC. Upon retiring, she was drawn back to her first love and became a Master Gardener. 

Nancy was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, into a family of passionate gardeners who instilled in her a love of gardening, baking, and cooking. Today, she tends to her garden in the North Fork. Here, she's learned a lot by transforming useless lawn into native plant oases, planting berries for birds and her family, creating deer-resistant gardens, and growing trees, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. 

Nancy and her husband, Ralph, joined Slow Food East End to meet like-minded people interested in preserving the local environment. She is active in various local programs supporting environmental stewardship and ecological justice. Despite her busy schedule, Nancy still finds time to enjoy the local beaches, swim in Peconic Bay, drink local wine, and host fabulous dinner parties.

Nancy joined the ReWild board in January 2024, co-chairing the North Fork Chapter with Ralph.

RALPH reinertsen

Ralph Reinertsen is a full time North Forker who really enjoys all the East End has to offer. He is a retired elementary school teacher, a retired motivational speaker for a nutritional organization, a former CSA core member and a current Slow Food volunteer. He has an outgoing personality and a willingness to work to achieve Slow Food goals. Having played a lifetime of athletics, he understands the importance of being a team player, and he welcomes the opportunity to work with his fellow board members.

Maggie Muzante

Maggie Muzante has a passion for flowers, growing plants, creating gardens, photography and art. She grew up in Glen Cove, her first job was for the local beaches in the City of Glen Cove as a calm water beach lifeguard. Maggie is a Farmingdale State College graduate, with a Bachelor's degree in Bioscience achieved in May 2020. Farmingdale had a great impact and source for inspiration, stemming from the Horticulture Department, where she was a work-study student. She worked in the rose garden, sustainable garden, greenhouse, and helped every year at the annual Spring Plant sale, and still does as an alumni. Her favorite courses were biology, chemistry, botany, entomology, and ecology at Farmingdale. 

After tending to her own raised beds in the front of her family’s home, Maggie gained planting opportunities for people in need of help with their garden. She expanded her expertise in creating gardens and vegetable raised beds for clients at their homes during her undergraduate studies. After graduation, her first place of employment began as an intern for the Long Island Native Plant Initiative (LINPI) in June 2020. At LINPI, she learned how to grow native plants from seed, identify plants and collect seeds, and learned more about monarchs and milkweed. She reared caterpillars rescued from milkweed plants at the nursery to help monarchs safely metamorphosize. Presently, she is the LINPI Nursery Manager, where she manages the propagation of native plants and works with volunteers. Her connections brought her to ReWild, starting as the first Gardens Program Manager. She is overjoyed to design, plan and education groups about native plants and their benefits for pollinators. 

Maggie enjoys traveling upstate New York, nature walks, photography, art in many forms, beach visits, swimming, music, company of friends, and collaborating with fellow horticulturists. She combines nature and art, creating herbariums with pressed flowers, flower frames, making recycled paper, and jewelry making with seaglass. She is always looking to learn new skills to expand her knowledge of horticulture.

Maggie joined ReWild in February 2023.