Bennett Leary

Wild Bird Photographer

I have always had a passion for wildlife; but in particular, I have been captivated by wild birds. I started bird watching when I was in my younger teenage years with my mom and grew to love and appreciate their beauty. As I grew older and learned more about various birds across the world, in different environments, I became even more enamored by them. I find birds to be such a spectacular species of animal, with incredible attributes that make them fascinating to learn about and greatly respectable.  From an environmental perspective, birds hold so many important pieces of our planet's history and can provide fundamental insight into how our environment is being adversely affected by climate change. From a biomedical engineering perspective, it is fascinating to look at bird's unique physiology as a way to possibly help guide the future of medicine. Studying a bird's adaptive abilities as well as their endurance, strength and resilience, especially when considering stressors such as long-distance migration, is absolutely going to inform the way I see and study the human body and its ability to heal. My passion for birds lead me to develop skills in amateur photography. I wanted to try and capture the beauty of the birds I saw, and so I began to hone my photography skills in high school. Now I look for opportunities wherever and whenever I can to take my camera out into nature. I find that wildlife photography quiets my mind and is a great way to release stress. 

Baseball Player

I have been playing baseball since I learned to walk. I always dreamed of making it to the MLB, but knew the odds of making it that far were low. But it never really mattered. I just love the sport. I love everything about it. I love working for something and watching my hard work pay off. I love struggling through moments and then finding my way to the other side. I love challenging myself and pushing myself beyond what I thought I was capable of. I love the feeling of success when I have doubted myself. But what I think I love most about baseball is the teamwork - the relationships that I form with my fellow teammates. At the end of every season, I feel a profound sense of loss because I am aware of how much I will miss the brotherhood and camaraderie that had been a part of my every day for so many months. I currently play D3 baseball for my college, and I am proud that I worked hard enough to be able to play at a competitive collegiate level. And that hard work certainly says a lot about who I am and my commitment and dedication to something when I am passionate about it. But at the end of the day, what I think being a baseball player means to me, is that I love to be a part of a team and in fact, thrive in that kind of environment. I am not afraid of hard work, to do my part to be the best version of myself that I can be, but I am also incredibly proud of and take personal satisfaction in the success of my teammates. I know that while my career in baseball will inevitably end, the sport has molded me into the person I am off of the field, and I am grateful for that.

World Traveler

It was very important to my grandparents that their grandchildren be educated not soley through school but also through travel. They believed that there is no substitution for experiencing new cultures and being exposed to people, traditions, ideas and places that are unlike any we would be exposed to living here in America. I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I was given the opportunity to travel as much as I have in my life, and to learn as much as I have because of the travelling I have done. I have met extraordinary people, experienced situations that opened my eyes and my heart in inexplicable ways, and made life-long friends and irreplaceable memories. I believe that because of my experiences while travelling and the exposure to different cultures, I learned to see the world in different ways than many of my friends, which I think, made me a more compassionate, empathic and open-minded person. My two favorite places that I have traveled are India and South Africa, both of which I hope to return to someday to spend more time.