Lesley University is thrilled to announce our 2024 Commencement speaker is renowned naturalist Sy Montgomery. Sy Montgomery has been called by the New York Times “one our finest chroniclers of the natural world.” She is a New England treasure, a conservationist, an adventurist, and the author of 34 books for adults and children, including Of Time and Turtles.
Sy Montgomery doesn’t go halfway. When she wrote about great apes, she got up close, to the point of being chased by a silverback gorilla. She’s been defrocked by an orangutan. In her book The Soul of an Octopus, she examines what it is like to embark upon a relationship with a creature so incredibly different from a human. In Of Time and Turtles, Montgomery takes us inside the Turtle Rescue League of Massachusetts, dedicated to saving injured and neglected turtles, and tells us stories of devotion, healing, and resilience.
