Gary Altman

Mr. Gary Altman is a Licensed Associate Counselor, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, Certified Vocational Evaluation Specialist and Registered Horticultural Therapist. He is a Teaching Instructor in the Department of Plant Biology, with responsibilities in teaching and providing supervised internship experiences to students in the Horticultural Therapy Certificate program and the Horticultural Therapy Minor Program. Mr. Altman currently serves as the Director of the Horticultural Therapy program at SEBS and teaches all the Horticultural Therapy specific coursework within the program. Currently, he teaches both lecture and experiential courses, including People-Plant Relationships, Horticultural Therapy: Concepts and Skills, Horticultural Therapy: Techniques and Programming, and Internship in Horticultural Therapy.

Mr. Altman brings extensive clinical experience to the classroom, having worked in a variety of clinical, community health, and rehabilitation settings. His area of specialization includes psychiatric rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, integrated behavioral health, people-plant relationships, and the therapeutic intersectionality with plants and plant-based activity. His pedagogical approach is based upon the cultivation of the student’s personal and horticultural strengths while developing therapeutic competency with a focus on disability advocacy and multicultural perspectives in the people-plant relationship.

Mr. Altman is a member of the American Horticultural Therapy Association Board of Directors and is Chair of the American Horticultural Therapy Association Professional Education Work Team.

Teaching Instructor
Department of Plant Biology
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences,
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey