Core Team members

Peggy Fiedler, PhD

Founder, Executive Director, Principal Scientist

Dr. Fiedler has 30+ years of research and teaching experience, primarily in California, although her research has taken her to the Neotropics and Western Australia. Her research on Calochortus (Liliaceae) and her writings on the more theoretical aspects of conservation biology have earned her an international reputation as an authority in conservation biology and rare-plant ecology and management. She holds a BA cum laude from Harvard, and a master's and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Peggy joined the Biology Department at San Francisco State University in1986, and in 1989 was appointed Professor of Conservation Biology, serving as a tenured faculty member until 2000. From 2010-2021, she led the University of California Natural Reserve System as its Executive Director. Dr. Fiedler has written/edited five books on conservation biology, held long-term editorial positions in professional conservation organizations, and has a long publication list of refereed journal articles, reports, and book chapters on conservation issues. During her career in conservation, she has served as a Senior Research Associate with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England and the Centre for Excellence in Resource Management at the University of Western Australia. Peggy is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar.

Brooke Carlson, ScD

Co-Founder, CEO

Brooke has 20 + years of executive marketing and general management experience in the beauty industry. This covers general business management including marketing, product development, finance, sales, creative, advertising, public relations, education, licensing, manufacturing/contract management, logistics, forecasting, research and development, and magazine editing and publishing. Her entrepreneurial background includes leadership, strategic marketing, brand development, brand image/positioning, budgeting, P&Ls, exploitation of channels of distribution, market penetration and white space, new product development and category expansion, as well as research and analysis.

Peter Agoos

Creative Director

Peter is a creative director, producer, designer, and artist, and the principal of Agoos D-zines LLC, which provides creative direction and production of major institutional celebrations, creates multimedia staging designs for events, and permanent and temporary exhibit designs. Clients include corporations from start-up to industry-defining giant as well as small nonprofits and international NGOs. His formal training includes stage design, sculpture, graphic design, and film, with a BA summa cum laude from Harvard College. He served for 20 years on the board of The Farm School, where education-focused programs on a 600-acre organic farm in central Massachusetts connect people of all ages to the land and help train the next generations of farmers in sustainable agriculture.

Michael Kisgen, JD

General Counsel

Mike is an attorney with eleven years of work in transactional and litigation roles, specializing in environmental, land use, real estate, contracts, and risk management. Currently at the University of California’s Natural Reserve System, Mike manages the law and policy for the system’s over 765,000 acres of protected area across California. Prior to working with UC, Mike brought citizen suits against contaminators of California’s soil and groundwater, and consulted nonprofits on solar energy projects. Mike has worked in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors, including a fellowship at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and clerkships at the Arizona Attorney General’s office and at the Pima County Attorney’s office. He received his JD from the University of Arizona, Master of Environmental Management from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and BA from UC Santa Barbara.

Jena Leidy Leonardo

Director of Education

Jena received her BA in Linguistics from the University of California Santa Cruz and a Masters of the Arts in Education, also from UCSC. After serving as a dual-immersion 3rd grade teacher in San Francisco Public Unified School District for five years, Jena has returned to the tech industry as a linguistic analyst, focusing on user interaction with language through various platforms. Her passion for plant conservation began at an early age, spending parts of her childhood in the outback of Western Australia and in the various ecosystems of California. Jena's goal as Director of Education is to facilitate and spread awareness and appreciation of our global biodiversity to inspire grassroots conservation efforts in the countries of origin.

Scientific Advisors

Anne Cochrane, PhD

Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions

Dr. Cochrane is a research associate and former senior research scientist with the Western Australian government, where she managed a long-term seed conservation facility for 25 years. Her research topics have included the impact of a changing climate on seed ecology and seed use in threatened plant reintroduction projects. She has published widely on these areas of research. Dr. Cochrane is particularly concerned with the conservation of threatened species in Western Australia. She has served on the steering committee of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership for 7 years and is a long-time member of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation.

Kayri Havens, PhD

Chicago Botanic Garden

Kayri Havens holds a BS and an MA in Botany from Southern Illinois University and a PhD in Biology from Indiana University. She spent three years as the Conservation Biologist at Missouri Botanical Garden before joining the Chicago Botanic Garden in April 1997. She is currently the Garden’s Senior Director of Ecology and Conservation and Senior Scientist. Her research interests include the effects of climate change on plant species, restoration genetics, pollination networks, ex situ conservation, and invasion biology. She is on the adjunct faculty of Loyola University, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois-Chicago. She chairs the Non-federal Cooperators Committee of the Plant Conservation Alliance and collaborates with a variety of academic institutions, agencies and stewardship organizations to help improve conservation efforts for plants and plant communities.

Craig Hilton-Taylor

IUCN Red List Unit, Cambridge, UK

Dr. Hilton-Taylor is the Head  of the IUCN Red List Unit. He manages the IUCN Red List, including capturing pressures on species, and is involved in developing and maintaining the IUCN Threats Classification Scheme.

Stephen D. Hopper AC, PhD, Hon DSc

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Currently Professor of Biodiversity at UWA Albany, Steve has 45+ years as a conservation biologist and teacher, including 12 years leading Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Perth, and six years leading the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. He holds a PhD and Hon DSc from UWA, and Hon DSc from the University of Sussex. He was awarded an AC (Companion of the Order of Australia), the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his global leadership in science and conservation. An active field biologist, Steve’s research focuses on sustainable living with biodiversity, especially through collaboration with Aboriginal elders. He developed Ocbil theory, which explores the evolution, ecology and conservation of biological and cultural diversity on the world’s oldest, climatically buffered and most infertile landscapes. These are found notably in 12 of the world’s 35 Global Biodiversity Hotspots, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere.

Lisa Shaw Kettley

TETRA TECH, HONOLULU, HAWAI’I

Ms. Kettley serves as an environmental planner for a consulting firm in Hawaii. She received her BS from University of Oregon and a Masters in Biology from Stanford University. A long time environmental consultant, she has more than two decades of experience in planning, permitting, and implementation for a wide variety of projects throughout Hawaii and the continental US, including watershed management, renewable energy, and habitat restoration.

Bruce M. Pavlik, PhD

Red Butte Botanic Garden, University of Utah

Dr. Pavlik received his PhD in Botany from the University of California at Davis. Ecological restoration has become central to his research program and recent projects have emphasized the design and active management of populations and communities using field-based, experimental approaches. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 scientific and popular publications. Between 2010 and 2015 he assumed the position of Head of Restoration Ecology at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) and is currently Director of Conservation at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum (University of Utah).

Robert Robichaux, PhD

University of Arizona & Hawaiian Silversword Foundation

Dr. Robichaux is University Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, and Founder and President of the Board of Trustees of the nonprofit Hawaiian Silversword Foundation. His work seeks to reverse extinction's tide in Hawai’i. With close colleagues in Hawai’i, he focuses on the reintroduction of critically endangered native plants, especially silverswords and lobeliads, and the link to landscape restoration at large scales.

Fernando A. O. Silveira, PhD

the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Dr. Silveira holds a PhD in Plant Biology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and is a professor of Plant Ecology at the same university. His research focuses broadly on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of grasslands and on seed functional ecology. Fernando has conducted research across several continents, although his current focus is on the biodiversity hotspots of the Cerrado and on the Atlantic forests of southern Brazil. Currently he works with colleagues on the physiological and morphological adaptations of plants restricted to ancient, climatically buffered, infertile landscapes, such as the campos rupestres (Brazil), kwongkan (Western Australia), and inselbergs worldwide. He serves as associate editor of Flora, an international journal of plant morphology, distribution, and functional ecology.

Paul Smith, PhD

Secretary General, Botanic Gardens Conservation International

With a career spanning 25 years in conservation, Dr. Smith joined Botanic Gardens Conservation International as Secretary General in March 2015. He is the former Head of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank (MSB), where he promoted the concept of seed banks as a resource for human innovation, adaptation and resilience. During his tenure seeds from more than 25,000 plant species were conserved in the MSB; today, seeds from the MSB and its partner seed banks are being used in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and habitat restoration. Paul trained as a plant ecologist, and is a specialist in the plants and vegetation of southern Africa. He is the author of two field guides to the flora of south-central Africa, the editor of the Ecological Survey of Zambia and the co-author of the Vegetation Atlas of Madagascar.

Rhian J. Smith, PhD

Science Editor

Dr. Rhian J. Smith is Senior Science Editor at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a freelance science editor. She holds a BSc in Ecology and Environmental Management, a PhD in plant conservation, and is an experienced field biologist—her research has taken her from the UK to Western Australia, South Africa, and South America. During her career she has specialized in plant conservation genetics and the evolution of the kangaroo-paw family Haemodoraceae, as well as science communication and education. She has served on the editorial boards of the journals Restoration Ecology and Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization and has over ten years editorial experience.

Board of Directors

Peggy Fiedler, PhD

Board Chair

See bio above at Core Team.

 

Brooke Carlson, ScD

Board Vice Chair

See bio above at Core Team.

 

Peter Agoos

Board Secretary

See bio above at Core Team.

 

Paul Staley

Board Treasurer

Paul is Senior Vice President of Self-Help Federal Credit Union, overseeing Facilities, Marketing and Communications, Lending, Training and Compliance. His involvement with Self-Help began in 2011 as project manager and consultant to the Foreclosure Recovery Project, a program that acquired, remodeled and sold foreclosed homes to low-and-moderate income families. He brings over 30 years of experience in finance and real estate. He currently serves on the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission of the California State Bar, and oversees marketing and communications.

Diane Fiedler

Board member

Diane Fiedler is a fine artist, designer, illustrator and art educator. Her illustration, design & exhibition design clients include Fidelity Investments, Astra-Zeneca, Fisons Pharmaceuticals, Gillette, MIT, The Broad Institute, Harvard, Harcourt Brace, and The Boston Children’s Museum for educational exhibits, greeting cards, early readers, magazines, college textbooks, webisodes, and EdX courses. She has taught Sci-Art classes at Tufts Experimental College/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fiedler’s artworks have been floated and photographed in Arctic glacial waters by expeditions under the flag of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and exhibited at the Explorer’s Club in New York.

Pamela Russo, MD, MPH

Board Member

Pamela has been a Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2000. Her work focuses on improving health at the community level, based on understanding health as driven by social, environmental, behavioral, health care and genetic determinants. Russo was an associate professor of medicine, researcher in clinical outcomes, and program co-director for the master’s program and fellowship in clinical epidemiology and health services research at Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. She earned a BS from Harvard College, MD from the UC San Francisco, and an MPH in epidemiology from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, followed by a residency in primary care general internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in clinical epidemiology and rheumatology at Cornell.

Catherine Watters

Board Member

Catherine Watters is a botanical artist whose paintings are held in several collections including The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation; The Brooklyn Botanical Garden; The National Tropical Botanical Garden, Kauai; The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; The Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney; The Museum of Natural History in Paris, and The Alisa and Isaac Sutton Collection. She is the co-founder of the Alcatraz Florilegium, the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Florilegium and the Château de Brécy Florilegium in France.

Catherine has been teaching for over 20 years throughout the U.S. and in France. She co-developed the Botanical Art Certificate Program at Filoli, Woodside, CA. Her illustrations appear in several publications, including Curtis’s Botanical Magazine and ‘Botanical Art Techniques, American Society of Botanical Artists’, Timber Press. She is a member of the ASBA, currently serving on the Board of Directors. Catherine received her BA from the University of California at Davis.

#sonomabotanicalgarden #botanicalart

Emerald Yeh

Board Member

Emerald is a nine-time Emmy Award-winning television journalist who served as an anchor for 19 years at KRON4 in San Francisco. Her Contact 4 team received the Consumer Excellence Award from the advocacy organization Consumer Action. Prior to joining KRON in 1984, Emerald anchored for CNN in Atlanta. Emerald has also received community awards from the State Attorney General, Youth Advocates, the Association of Children’s Services, CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates for Foster Children), and many others. She is a founding board member of the Asian Pacific Fund, and has served on the boards of the United Way of the Bay Area and the Center for the Pacific Rim at the University of San Francisco. A graduate of the University of Hawai'i, Emerald majored in journalism and minored in political science. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

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