Douglas Ladd is Conservation Biologist for The Nature Conservancy in Missouri. For 31 years he was Director of Conservation for Missouri, where he managed science, land management, and conservation real estate activities. He has been involved with fire management and fire ecology, conservation planning, natural area assessment, and ecological management, restoration, and research for more than thirty-five years, with emphasis on vegetation, ecological restoration and fire ecology. Recent work has concentrated on vegetation and fire ecology of Midwestern prairies and woodlands, developing assessment and ecological monitoring protocols for terrestrial vegetation, and ecoregional conservation planning. He is a federally certified prescribed fire leader and has instructed fire training courses in the United States and Central America. He has also worked on lichens in the Midwest for over two decades, and is currently collaborating with Richard Harris of the New York Botanical Garden on a study of Ozark lichens, which has resulted in the discovery of several species and genera new to science. Doug serves on the board of the Conservation Research Institute in Chicago, as well as the advisory boards of the Harris World Ecology Center and Shaw Nature Reserve, and as an adjunct faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. He has undergraduate degrees in botany and chemistry, and a master's degree in botany from Southern Illinois University, where his thesis research was conducted under Dr. Robert Mohlenbrock on the flora and vegetation of north-central Vermont. In addition to numerous articles and reports, he is the author of two field guides, North Woods Wildflowers and Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers, and coauthor of Discover Natural Missouri and Distribution of Illinois Vascular Plants. A research associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, Ladd resides in Webster Groves with his wife Deborah.
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Shane Staten is the Senior Wetland Ecologist at Terra Technologies, an environmental engineering firm with offices in St. Louis and Kansas City. He manages the St. Louis office and is responsible for Clean Water Act Section 404 & 401 permitting for Terra Technologies’ eastern Missouri and Illinois projects. Mr. Staten is a certified Professional Wetland Scientist and has extensive experience with restoration design and construction oversight as the head of Terra Technologies' Wetland and Stream Mitigation Banking Division which operates thirteen approved large scale wetland, stream, and riparian restoration projects across Missouri and Kansas encompassing almost three square miles of restored wetland, stream, riparian, and prairie habitats. Shane is a Past President of the Central Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists and a former member of the international Society of Wetland Scientists’ Board of Directors. He received a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a Bachelor’s degree in Integrative Biology, with honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Elizabeth Middleton - Elizabeth’s passion in her work life is using science to answer questions about natural community management. She spends her summers with her nose buried in the complex canopy of Missouri’s beautiful remnant prairies. Elizabeth also spends time thinking about and collaborating on projects that involve the role of the soil community in shaping restored and remnant plant communities. But mostly, her work has always been about prairies. Elizabeth received her B.S. in Environmental Science and Ph.D. in Plant Community Ecology from Indiana University and has been the Grassland Botanist for MDC for the past 6 years. Grateful for the rich tradition of botanical excellence in Missouri, Elizabeth continues to deepen and strengthen her botanical skills to deliver the best possible science on prairie plant communities.
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Nate Muenks serves as Habitat Management Coordinator for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Nate is responsible for coordinating the Department’s Comprehensive Conservation Strategy, which is a process that identifies Missouri conservation priorities to inform decision-making regarding the greatest opportunities for sustainable conservation of fish, forest and wildlife resources. A significant portion of Nate’s duties include efforts to identify and aid in the management of quality habitat systems throughout the state to ensure diverse landscapes for Missouri’s native flora and fauna. In addition to these duties, Nate also coordinates the Department’s terrestrial invasive species management efforts, working collaboratively with the Department’s aquatic invasive species coordinator, housed within the Fisheries Division. Prior to joining the Missouri Department of Conservation, Nate spent 9 years (2006–2014) with the Missouri Department of Transportation as a Sr. Environmental Specialist, where he specialized in streams and wetlands, including work with delineation, permitting, mitigation, restoration and monitoring. From 2011–2014, Nate served a dual capacity, retaining wetland and stream focus, while taking on additional duties as MoDOT’s statewide erosion and sediment control coordinator. In 2002, Nate earned a B.S. in Biology with an Emphasis in Wildlife from Missouri State University.
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Andrew Braun earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Natural Science degrees from Southeast Missouri State University, and has worked with a variety of organizations in natural resource management and research positions, including Missouri State Parks, Southeast Missouri State University, the L-A-D Foundation, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and the Institute of Botanical Training. He currently works with the Missouri Department of Conservation as an Assistant Natural History Biologist in Cape Girardeau. He is also a chapter representative of the Missouri Native Plant Society and the secretary of the board of NatureCITE.
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Jacob Hadle has recently been hired by the Konza Prairie-Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) as a research assistant at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS. Since Jacob’s inception at Konza Prairie-LTER, he participates in and manages a number of long term ecological studies that build upon tallgrass prairie responses to climate, fire, and grazing. Previously, Jacob acted as the Botanist for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) in the Prairie Peninsula Domain (D06) of Kansas. Here he served a year supervising and administrating personnel in botanical field operations sampling plant biomass and species composition data. Prior to his professional career in Kansas, Jacob has spent over 5 years working in the lovely state of Missouri for Missouri Department of Conservation and the Institute of Botanical Training. Jacob earned his B.S. at Kansas State University in 2008 and his M.S. at Wichita State University in 2015.
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Ioana Popescu graduated with a biology degree in Romania in 1992 and attended graduate school in Cincinnati, Ohio. She worked on plant population genetics and became a botanist while being a teaching assistant to three botany professors in graduate school. She held two, 1-year visiting biology and botany positions at Whitworth College in Spokane, WA and Monmouth IL, and arrived in Springfield in August 2001 for the biology and botany professor position at Drury University where she currently teaches a variety of biology classes.
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