Associate Professor, Center for Earth and Environmental Science, SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY

Mary is an associate professor of environmental science at the Center for Earth and Environmental Science at SUNY Plattsburgh. She studies the influence of organisms and ecological communities on ecosystem function. Her research focuses on predicting the influence of wetland plants on denitrification, a microbial process that provides an important ecosystem service by removing excess nitrogen. Her work has also addressed the impacts of coastal management, including invasive plant removal and coastal marsh restorations, on nitrogen cycling and ecosystem services. She teaches a variety of courses, including: Ecology, Wetland Ecology and Management, Biogeochemical Cycling, Ecosystem Ecology, and Environmental Data Analysis.

Horticulturist, Owner, Warren’s Nursery, Inc., Water Mill, NY

B.S. Ornamental Horticulture (1982); University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Vicki has worked in one facet or another of the horticulture field for over 40 years. She and her husband own Warren’s Nursery where she manages their 47 greenhouses and specializes in propagating and growing local genotype native plants for use on their landscape and revegetation jobs, as well as for rain gardens. As a botanist, she has been conducting a survey of the Flora of Montauk, assessing a century of change since Norman Taylor’s study of 1923. Vicki is vice president of the not-for-profit Third House Nature Center, Inc. Their internship program, now in its tenth year, finds her working every Sunday throughout the school year with six high school senior interns studying botany, invasive plants, birds and ecology of the Montauk County Park.

Botanist/Garden Manager/Educator, The Native Plant Center, SUNY Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY

Certificate in Botany (2022); The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY Certificate in Sustainable Gardening with Northeast Flora (2021); Go Native U, SUNY Westchester Community College B.F.A. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design (1989); Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

Patty is a passionate advocate for native plants in her role as the Garden Manager and Educator at The Native Plant Center at Westchester Community College. She is leading the project to document the flora of Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, a 4,300 acre Westchester County Park and is a contributor to the Flora of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, a 1,600 acre New York State Park in Sleepy Hollow, NY. She enjoys teaching as an adjunct professor at SUNY WCC, and at the New York Botanical Garden. Before devoting herself to the study of plants, Patty worked in the fashion industry for over 20 years. A lifelong gardener and nature lover, Patty is a native of Napa, California.

Naturalist and Botanist, Nature Discoveries, Rochester, NY.

Steven has spent most of his adult life immersed in natural history – including plants, insects, herps, birds, and mushrooms. An early retirement from teaching offered the opportunity to develop Nature Discoveries, an ecotour company he co-founded, and has led some 140 trips to some of the world’s finest natural areas. He was a founder and the first president of the Rochester Area Mycological Association. He developed biotic inventories and master plans for The Nature Conservancy’s Mashomack and Great Gully preserves and the Genesee Country Museum’s Nature Center. He teaches Field Natural History (a class he developed over 30 years ago) at Monroe Community College. Current interests have focused on graminoids, Odonata, and Lepidoptera. Now semi-retired, he spends much of his time exploring the great ecological treasures of New York’s North Country.

Naturalist, Native Plant Nerd and Gardener, Canandaigua, NY

Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve Manager, New York State Department of Transportation, Utica, NY

Ed is the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve Manager for NYSDOT. He has worked for NYSDOT for the past 20 years including a position as a Regional Environmental Manager. Prior to that Mr. Frantz worked 6 years for the NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation as a Wetlands Specialist. Ed has a broad working experience of many environmental areas and has been involved in over 1000 projects in every area of development, including: transportation, utilities, agricultural, industrial, residential and commercial. Raising understandings and finding balance between society needs and our environment has been a primary focus in his career. He currently serves on the board of the NYS Wetlands Forum, is a former Chairman of the NYS Flora Association, a member of the Abstract Review Team for the International Conference on Ecology and Transportation, founding member of the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program, a former board member for the NYS Invasive Plant Council, and serves on the National Research Council- Transportation Research Board: Committee on Ecology and Transportation (ADC 30).

Field Botanist, Hudsonia Ltd., Annandale, NY

M.S. Plant Biology (2011); University of Georgia, Athens, GA
B.S. Physics (2003); Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

Chris lives and works in the Hudson Valley and is a field botanist and mapper at Hudsonia. He works on flora surveys, rare plant surveys, habitat and natural community mapping, natural resource inventories, and other projects. His master’s degree research investigated the effects of large herbivore extirpation on seed survival and woody seedling communities in tropical forest fragments. His interests include rare species conservation, plant community description and classification, and the effects of resource extraction and global change on biological communities.

Plant Ecologist, New York City Parks, New York, NY

M.S. Environmental Science, (2012); Pace University, New York, NY
B.A. Art Management, (2007); College of Charleston, Charleston, SC

Clara Holmes is a Plant Ecologist with NYC Parks, Division of Environment and Planning. She has over a decade of experience in plant community monitoring and conservation, restoration planning, and project management. At NYC Parks she monitors salt marshes, tracks rare and locally sensitive plant species, and reviews planting palettes for restoration and construction projects. Prior to working with NYC Parks, she managed seed collection projects for restoration throughout the mid-Atlantic region as the Seed Collection Coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank.

Greenhouse Manager, SUNY ESF, Syracuse, NY

Michael is Greenhouse Manager at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Prior to this position he taught at SUNY Cortland for 15 years. While at Cortland he added hundreds of plant specimens to the Herbarium (CORT) and digitized the majority of the vascular plant collection. His book, Flora of Cortland and Onondaga Counties, New York, is partly based on this work. He has led many outings for the NYFA, Finger Lakes Native Plant Society, and Leatherstocking Botanical Society.

Environmental Consultant/Botanist, Liverpool, NY

Joe is retired from the environmental consulting firm Terrestrial Environmental Specialists, Inc., where he was President and one of the founders. He has worked over 40 years in the consulting business. He has performed botanical studies in all the states in the northeastern U.S., Alaska, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Wetlands/habitat restoration and wetland vegetation are his main interests, along with plant habitat characteristics and ferns. Joe is certified as a Professional Wetlands Scientist and as an Adjunct Professor taught a wetlands class at the Rochester Institute of Technology for several years. He is active in presentations on plant identification and habitat information. He has been involved with the NYFA since its inception and attended the original meeting organized by Dick Mitchell in March 1988.

Rich is a botanist and ecologist who has worked primarily on landscape ecology, natural areas inventories, habitat requirements of breeding passerine birds, and rare plant species distribution and conservation. Previously he has pursued these interests across ridge, swale, and tussock for the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program, and the Alaska Bird Observatory.  Raised in Washington County, New York, he began studying rare plant species across New York for the New York Natural Heritage Program in 2006.

Rachel is a wetland ecologist in the Environmental Science and Ecology Department at SUNY Brockport. She researches how plant communities influence ecosystem functions and services in wetlands and studies wetland restoration and evaluates outcomes at multiple scales. Currently she is focused on vegetation dynamics of Great Lakes coastal wetlands and oversees research involving local wetland restoration projects as well as vegetation sampling on southern and eastern Lake Ontario for the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program. Previously, Rachel was a faculty member at SUNY Plattsburgh where she was one of the early members of the Adirondack Botanical Society and led field trips and assisted with a restoration project involving rare species on Whiteface Mountain.

Dan retired from the Adirondack Park Agency in 2012 after a 27-year career, where he served as Supervisor of the Resource Analysis and Scientific Services division since 2005. He has been a member of the NYFA and of the Adirondack Botanical Society since their inceptions. He co- authored the NYS Freshwater Wetlands Delineation Manual (1995), developed the NYS Adirondack Park Agency Compensatory Wetlands Mitigation Guidelines (1996), and served on the NYS Invasive Species Task Force Steering Committee (2005). Dan has been an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Plattsburgh and at Paul Smith’s College on wetlands ecology and landscape scale environmental assessment, and regularly guest lectures at SUNY Plattsburgh, Paul Smith’s College and ESF’s Wanakena Ranger School. He is a professional musician playing bass in a jazz band. Winter will find him on Nordic skates on wild lake ice and summer will find him hiking, biking and kayaking.

Associate Curator and Extension Botanist, L.H. Bailey Hortorium Herbarium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Anna is a plant ecologist who holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell and her research and teaching efforts focus on the plant communities of New York and the northeastern U.S. In addition to serving on the NYFA board, she is a member of the steering committee for the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society.