CNPS Staff

Maya graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Science and Management, where she fell in love with native plants in both the natural and built environment. Before CNPS, she was a field technician for both the Bureau of Land Management in New Mexico and the Forest Service in the Sierras. She most recently worked as a landscape designer in the Bay Area. In her free time she loves to surf, go on bike rides, and cook with friends.

Ann-Marie is the Horticulture Outreach Manager for CNPS, where she gets to spend her days supporting native plant communities and their people. She has spent a decade and a half serving landscapes and watersheds with nonprofits in California and Arizona. She holds a deep passion for plants and landscapes, having served as the Executive Director of ReScape California (formerly Bay-Friendly Landscaping and Gardening Coalition), a nonprofit educating the large-scale landscape industry throughout Northern California on planning, constructing, and maintaining sustainable landscape. Prior to that she was with Prescott Creeks doing watershed planning and riparian restoration in Northern Arizona. Ann-Marie studied Watershed Management and Sustainable Community Development at Prescott College. Much of this work was driven by a childhood without a watershed, but with a diversity of plant and wildlife. One of her fondest wishes is to a redwood, or as much like one as possible.

David Bryant served as the Director of Visitor Experience at California Botanic Garden, driving public engagement, communications and programming for California native plant advocacy. His passion for native plants began with forays into the Texas Hill Country during his youth, where the rugged landscapes and charismatic flora cast their wild spell. Throughout his career, he has worked passionately at the intersections of design and the natural sciences, building bridges between the public and the environment through exhibitions, experiences and branding. He earned his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and his career began with positions in the exhibit departments at Roger Williams Park Zoo and Harvard Natural History Museum.

Originally from western Washington, Shelly gladly left the dark, damp conifer forests for the open oak woodlands and coastal prairie of California. She has worked as a botanist in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 20 years. Her first experience with vegetation mapping changed the way she sees natural landscapes—constantly keying in on the textures and repeating patterns of vegetation. Her specialty is mapping grassland communities. When the plants are done blooming, Shelly studies lichens.

Jennifer works in the Vegetation Program to survey, classify and map vegetation in California. She co-teaches workshops on sampling methods and taxonomy and focuses on the classification and monitoring of grassland and other vegetation. She earned both a B.S. and an M.S. degree from the University of California, Davis in Plant Biology where her thesis focused on temporal dynamics of vernal pool grassland vegetation. She continues to participate in a state-wide classification project looking at fine-scale vegetation in vernal pools including ranking the rarity of these unique habitats. Botany is her first love and she has extensive experience working in different plant communities across the western United States, ranging from grasslands to forests, alpine peaks and saline marshes. Her favorite plant is one formerly known as Centunculus minimus.

Álvaro Palacios Casanova is CNPS’s East Bay and Northern California Conservation Advocate, where he works to protect and conserve native plants in the East Bay and throughout California.  Álvaro has over a decade of experience in organizing and policy advocacy as an environmental justice practitioner, where he worked to stop oil and chemicals companies from poisoning low-income and communities of color. Álvaro is Tutul Xiu Maya, a survivor of colonialism, and an avid birdwatcher who loves to share the beauty of the natural world with people through naturalist walks and photography. Álvaro got his bachelor's and master’s from the University of California in biology and has a deep passion for indigenous people’s rights, conservation, and racial justice.

Andre is responsible for accounting, human resources and administration functions. Andre brings 10 years of accounting experience having worked in the retail and manufacturing industries. Andre studied theater arts in the Philippines, where he grew up, but soon learned that his talents are better suited for analytical and logistical work. This is his first endeavor in the non-profit world and is thrilled to be contributing to the meaningful mission of CNPS. While not hard at work, Andre enjoys cuddling with his cats, dining out, watching films and traveling.

Kate works with the Development and Communications teams to maintain a seamless CNPS experience across digital channels. A Schwab-Rosenhouse Scholar, Kate is a graduate of the Integral Program at Saint Mary’s College, where she studied the great works of the western canon, developed an independent Performing Arts curriculum, and published her thesis, On the Unity of Multitude. Since earning her BA, Kate has advocated for public broadcasting and the arts, as one of the Voices of CapRadio, a volunteer for Ben Vereen’s Wellness Through the Arts, and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Ellen is Associate Rare Plant Botanist at CNPS, helping complete rare plant profiles. In a previous life, she was an herbarium botanist, performing plant IDs, leading collecting field trips, training students in plant identification, curating the herbarium, and publishing taxonomic papers. She is excited to be working for CNPS!

Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco and raised in the Central Coast of California, Jose graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BA in Geography/Environmental Studies. He is also a Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (DDCSP@UW) alumni who is pursuing a career in conservation work with a strong intersection in science, community outreach, and environmental justice. As a way to connect with his environment, he loves to spend time outdoors, hiking, playing soccer and exploring creative outlets through drawing.

Julie is the Vegetation Program Director where she maintains standard methods for surveying, classifying, and mapping vegetation in California since 2001. She works collaboratively on vegetation inventory and monitoring projects with agencies, CNPS chapters and staff, and other partners. Julie co-teaches public workshops on vegetation surveying and mapping methods, and she archives and analyzes vegetation data from across the state. She is a co-author of the second edition of A Manual of California Vegetation with John Sawyer and Todd Keeler-Wolf, and a co-editor of California’s Botanical Landscapes with Michael Barbour, John Sawyer, and Todd Keeler-Wolf. She also is an Ecological Society of America Vegetation Panel member. Julie has an M.A. degree from Humboldt State University with a thesis on watercourse vegetation of the eastern Mojave Desert, and she holds two B.A. degrees from the University of California-Santa Cruz in Biology/Botany and Environmental Studies. She has worked as a vegetation ecologist and botanist for over 20 years including federal and state agencies like the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, University of California, and Department of Fish & Game. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, being in nature, hiking, creating artwork, and spending time with her two kids.

Connor is the Operations Coordinator for CNPS. Born and raised in Sacramento he graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration. Prior to CNPS Connor lived in San Francisco producing concerts and festivals across the Bay Area. After his time in the music industry, he knew it was time to shift gears into another area that interested him, environmental advocacy. Nowadays, you can find Connor trail running through the Sierras, playing board games and discovering new music.

Kelsey works for the Vegetation Program on various classification and mapping projects across California. Her passion for native plants began at Humboldt State University where she earned a B.S. in Botany and started her first field position monitoring Whitebark Pine mortality in Lassen Volcanic National Park. After being sold on working outside with plants, she continued doing field work for UC Davis focusing on various ecology projects in post-wildfire forests and alpine meadows of the Sierra Nevada. Kelsey then moved on to the National Park Service where she surveyed and mapped the spread of Sudden Oak Death in Redwood National Park and lead vegetation surveys for the San Francisco Bay Area and Klamath Network Inventory and Monitoring Programs. In her free time she enjoys backpacking, cooking, playing drums and dancing samba.

Adam is an Assistant Field Botanist working on various vegetation classification and mapping projects across California for the Plant Sciences Program. He grew up in Washington, Missouri near St. Louis and graduated from Maryville University studying Ecology. While there he researched the reproductive and pollination biology of 5 native Missouri species from the genus Tradescantia. Since that time, he has worked in numerous eco-regions across the west and particularly in California on a variety of projects. His fondest field season to date was surveying for bumblebees in northern Sierra mountain meadows for CDFW. Previous work includes vegetation surveys in the Mojave Desert, the Central Valley, and Modoc Plateau. His main hobbies include hiking, camping, photographing plant-pollinator interactions, and botanizing along the trails throughout California, while taking in all the state has to offer.

Nick coordinates the activities of the Conservation Program. Nick earned his BS degree in Environmental Horticulture at UC Davis, and recently completed his PhD in botany at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG)/Claremont Graduate University. As a graduate student Nick produced the first Flora of Tejon Ranch and studied evolutionary patterns in perennial Streptanthus (jewelflowers). From 2006-2010, he was employed by CNPS, first as a Vegetation Program Assistant, and later as the Rare Plant Program Director. Nick has also worked as a botanist for the U.S. Forest Service, Chicago Botanic Garden, and the private consulting industry. He has taught botany classes to professionals and interested members of the public for CNPS, RSABG, the Jepson Herbarium, and Theodore Payne Foundation. As a volunteer he has served on the Rare Plant Program Committee and the board of Southern California Botanists, serving as president in 2015-16. Nick is a fellow of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, hiking, rock climbing, and photographing wildflowers, activities that are often not mutually exclusive.

Kendall comes back to CNPS to coordinate with the implementation and development of the Important Plant Areas Program. Formerly the Natalie Hopkins Conservation Intern, they recently completed a season in the Flathead National Forest in Montana conducting timber sale preparation. They received a BS in Environmental Geology from William & Mary, along with an appreciation for tidal marshes and mapmaking.  Their passions include advocating for environmental justice, soup, and promoting resilience, in our communities as well as the natural world.

Elizabeth joined CNPS in 2017 as a primary organizer of the CNPS 2018 Conservation Conference. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's in Society and Environment and a minor in Art Practice. Before CNPS, Elizabeth worked as an Outdoor Science Instructor in the Sierra Nevada, where she led interactive science lessons and environmental art exercises among native plants. A lifelong environmentalist from Davis, California, Elizabeth is passionate about the CNPS's mission to protect California's native plant heritage and preserve it for future generations. Elizabeth advances environmental causes through art and public programming.

Alexis has previously worked in a variety of environments all over California such as maritime chaparral, coastal sage scrub, floodplain and riparian habitats. She majored in environmental studies and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz while also working at the university's arboretum. In her free time she likes to share food with friends, take pictures of insects, and be outdoors with her family.

Isabella joined CNPS as a Conservation Analyst in July 2020. Born and raised in the Central Valley, Isabella spent much of her early life exploring the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains and was raised with a deep appreciation for the native wildlife of California. After graduating from Barnard College with a degree in anthropology and human rights, Isabella earned a J.D. from UC Hastings and has practiced law in the field of civil litigation since 2017. Isabella is excited to apply her experience and skill set to the conservation efforts of CNPS. In her free time, Isabella enjoys volunteering with the Sierra Club and spending time with friends and family.

Barbara is the Senior Membership Coordinator, ensuring the chapters and individual members are engaged with the organization's work and mission. Since earning her bachelor's degree from California Lutheran University, she's spent her career in both higher education and environmental education including time at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. With a passion for outreach to underserved and minoritized communities, she believes that all citizens of California should have the opportunity to enjoy, appreciate and protect the amazing beauty of our wild spaces and natural habitats.

David has been an active member of the CNPS since he first joined CNPS back in the late 1970s. Since 1986, he has served in a variety of statewide and local leadership and conservation roles, including serving on the CNPS Board of Directors (1986-1994, 2002-2007), President of the Board of Directors (1991-1994), Chairperson of the CNPS Chapter Council (2011-2014); President of Channel Islands Chapter (2004-2014), Conservation Committee Chairperson (1986-2016); and Conservation Committee Chairperson for the Redbud Chapter (2007-2016), among others. He was nominated as a CNPS Fellow in 2014. David has acquired a thorough knowledge of California's native flora and a substantial repertoire of knowledge and skills with over 30 years of field experience in biological studies as a biologist/botanist and a physical geographer. He has worked on, or managed, environmental issues surrounding a variety of development projects throughout the Pacific Southwest; has consulted on, or performed, biological resource inventories, vegetation mapping and classification projects; wetland delineations and restoration projects, and rare plant surveys; and has performed biological impact analysis and mitigation assessments and construction and mitigation monitoring. David was born in British Columbia, Canada, and grew up in Ventura County, settling in Ojai, CA in the 1970's. He earned a B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies (emphasis in botany) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, holds an A.S. degree in Landscape Horticulture and a Certificate of Completion in Natural Resources from Ventura College, and is a Certified Arborist by the International Society for Arboriculture. He formed his own consulting firm, David Magney Environmental Consulting (DMEC) in 1997 after working at other consulting firms since 1986. He has taught classes and workshops on a variety of subjects including CEQA, Plant Families, Riparian and Wetland Plant Identification, Clean Water Act permitting, and wetlands delineation and monitoring. David has authored two floras in California and is currently working on the manuscript for the Flora of Ventura County, a project he has been researching since the late 1970's.

Angela coordinates seed banking efforts for the Rare Plant Program. She has a wide range of experience in rare plant monitoring, restoration, plant propagation, and environmental education. Her past work has included everything from pulling weeds and mapping rare plants to leading bird walks and counting bats. Prior to joining CNPS, she worked for Golden Hour Restoration Institute and Oaktown Native Plant Nursery. In her free time, she volunteers with the California Center for Natural History. She has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Amy manages the Rare Plant Treasure Hunt project, a citizen science effort which provides valuable data on to the CNPS Rare Plant Program and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Amy earned a B.S. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from U.C. Santa Cruz in 2009, where she studied behavioral ecology and genetics in California lizards. Amy's career experience has focused on the conservation of rare and special status species, such as the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog, California Tiger Salamander, Coho Salmon, and Santa Lucia Fir. She is passionate about science outreach and citizen science, and enjoys nature photography, birdwatching, and tidepooling in her free time.

Christine oversees fundraising from individuals, corporations, and foundations in support of CNPS.  She's held similar positions at environmental organizations such as Potomac Conservancy, NatureServe, and American Farmland Trust. Christine is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She received her Masters of Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from McDaniel College.  Christine grew up on a dairy farm in Maryland and moved to California in 2014. She enjoys sleeping under the stars, cooking Indian food, and scouting for wildflowers.

Tom is a lifelong Californian who grew up in Los Angeles and has a degree in Environmental Studies from San Francisco State Univerity. He has spent his career working for land management agencies in California concentrating on botany and invasive plant management. Tom worked as a Biological Science Technician performing plant surveys throughout Yosemite National Park, ran an interagency vegetation program as a Natural Resource Specialist with Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and most recently worked as the IPM Coordinator with Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.

Vince has been an active member of CNPS since 1980. He has assisted with listing petitions, litigation, rare plant studies, and the annual San Diego Chapter fall plant sale for many years. Vince graduated from SDSU and UCLA where he received an MA in Biology. He lives in San Diego, where he owns a small private environmental consulting firm specializing in biological studies and endangered species surveys. He enjoys propagating native plants, specializing in rare Dudleyas, and maintains a diverse native plant garden filled with dozens of uncommon species. He is passionate about endangered plants and unusual plant communities, and loves the outdoors.

Kendra is coordinating field work for the Vegetation Program. She earned an M.S. in Botany (Ecology emphasis) from Oregon State University, where her research compared the community composition effects of two fuel treatments on chaparral in southwestern Oregon. She also has a B.A. in Biology from Brown University. Before joining CNPS, she worked for the National Park Service in the Santa Monica Mountains, for the Missouri Botanical Garden coordinating their Madagascar specimens and data, and in horticulture for Yerba Buena Nursery, one of the first nurseries to specialize in California natives.

Aaron implements the CNPS Rare Plant Review Process in addition to maintaining and updating the CNPS Inventory. He also assists with rare plant conservation work and various other tasks pertaining to rare plant science as time allows. Prior to joining CNPS in June of 2010, Aaron worked in environmental consulting and as a biologist for California State Parks on the Central Coast, where he performed rare plant and vegetation surveys, aided in prescribed fire management, and produced a multitude of maps pertaining to sensitive resources, in addition to various other tasks. Aaron also monitored nesting seabirds for USFWS on a remote island off the coast of Alaska during the summer of 2008. Recent publications for California State Parks include the San Luis Obispo Coast District North Coast Acquisitions Natural Resource Inventory, 2008, and the Atlas of Sensitive Species of the Morro Bay Area, 2010, in collaboration with the Morro Bay National Estuary Program. Aaron holds a B.S. from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, in Ecology and Systematic Biology with an emphasis in Botany. In addition to his enthusiasm for field botany, Aaron enjoys hiking, backpacking, snowboarding, photography, travel, and ceramics in his free time.

My botanical career began at UC Santa Cruz (1976–1981) where I and two other undergraduates were awarded Honors on our thesis documenting the flora and vegetation of a remote mountain range in California’s eastern Mojave Desert. For my Master’s degree at UC Berkeley (1985–1988), I completed a status survey of the vernal-pool grasses Neostapfia, Orcuttia and Tuctoria in California’s Central Valley. After earning my PhD in Integrative Biology (Plant Systematics) at UC Berkeley (1998–2004), I spent seven years in South Africa working as a faculty member at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2008–2015). I have authored or co-authored > 30 scientific publications, including taxonomic revisions and descriptions of > 30 new plant species from tropical Africa and Madagascar. Since returning to California in 2018, I’ve begun a new research project on phylogenomics and population genomics of the Orcuttiinae (in collaboration with Dr. Travis Columbus of the California Botanic Garden). I’m also absolutely thrilled to be joining the Plant Science team at CNPS!

Emily Underwood is a science writer and editor who has written for Science, Smithsonian, High Country News and The Washington Post, among other outlets. Her work has won several national awards, including the 2018 National Academies Keck Futures Initiatives Communication Award and the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. After completing a master’s degree in science writing at Johns Hopkins University, Emily worked as a staff writer for Science at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. In 2016 she moved back home to the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she first became imprinted on California's poppy-paved hillsides and oak woodlands.

Savannah joined CNPS as an Assistant Vegetation Ecologist on various vegetation description and classification projects. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with an Environmental Studies degree. At the university, she also worked at the university arboretum and a plant physiology lab, conducting research on sunflower allelopathy. In her free time, Savannah likes to read, hike, and design tiny homes.

Molly Wiebush received her MS in ecology from Florida State University, where she studied how fire affects co-flowering communities and their associated butterflies in an old-growth longleaf pine savanna. Before she moved to Florida, she did fieldwork throughout the western U.S., including doing vegetation surveys with the National Park Service's Rocky Mountain Inventory and Monitoring Network. Molly grew up next to continental U.S.'s largest wilderness area, and she loves learning new plant communities, backpacking, and chasing weird bugs.

Andrea has two decades of experience in science-based public lands management: monitoring rare plants and plant communities, carrying out project compliance surveys, mapping and removing invasive plants, and responding to landscape-level threats such as Phytophthora, climate change, and altered disturbance regimes. She has worked in partnership to design indicators, metrics, status, and trends for land health; lead volunteers in botanical inventories; improve the quality and quantity of data submitted to CNDDB; and teach plant identification, field methods, and invasive plant management planning. She earned her B.S. in Biology from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she spent summers on field research at a coastal grassland studying species composition and demography of the host plant of an endangered butterfly and decided to become a land manager. For fun, she teaches grass identification and makes acronyms and plant lists.

Brock is responsible for overseeing and monitoring financial practices, supporting budget processes, managing human resources, and providing oversight of facilities and IT infrastructure. He brings over 25 years of finance, accounting and administration leadership competence to CNPS. Brock has worked for the State of California in a variety of roles (cost accounting, budgeting, finance, auditing, and grant administration). Most recently, he served 5 years as the chief internal auditor for the California State Board of Equalization and 6 years as the CEO/CFO of the Placer County Fair Association (non-profit). Brock earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration (Finance emphasis) from San Diego State University. Brock is comfortable in the California back country, but equally enjoys finance and operational process improvement. He possesses a passion for nature, travel, adventure, perpetual learning, and leaving the world better than he found it.

Jessica Woodard is responsible for Calscape, CNPS’s platform connecting new gardeners and experts with the coolest native plants for their garden. Prior to CNPS, she worked in water conservation, focusing on sustainable landscaping and using data-driven information and technology to better communicate messages across different audiences. She received her Master’s in Geography at San Francisco State University and a BA in International Development/World Religions from McGill University. Currently, she finds inspiration and hope in the plant communities she tends to with the Skyline Gardens restoration project in the Oakland/Berkeley hills.

Sam is spearheading the development of the Important Plant Areas Program with the Conservation Program staff for statewide implementation. Following previous pilot workshops, Sam is now developing methods and strategies for delineating those areas which are most critical to the conservation of California’s flora. Sam holds a master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management, specializing in Conservation Planning, from the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His Master’s Project, Landscape Scale Planning for Solar Energy and Conservation provided a proof of concept for spatially modelling stakeholder values in the landscape which was incorporated into the San Joaquin Least Conflict Solar Analysis. Sam has spent his entire professional career working in natural resource management for the public, private, and non-profit sectors. His resume includes work on projects for the United States Forest Service, private environmental consulting, and international conservation organizations in Switzerland. He has a strong background in ecology with emphases in spatial modelling, floristic surveys, soil morphology, hydrology, wetland management, terrestrial vertebrate surveys, and conflict management/negotiation. When he is not working, Sam enjoys backpacking, surfing, craft beers, and volunteering at the California Academy of Sciences.