Tom Kaye is Executive Director of the Institute for Applied Ecology. He graduated with a B.S. from The Evergreen State College (1984) and received a master's degree (1989) and PhD (2001) from Oregon State University. After working for Olympic National Park (1984-1987), he joined the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Plant Conservation Biology Program where he conducted research and contributed to policy on management of threatened and endangered plant species. He has served on the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Re-introduction Specialist Group and is a member of the Native Plant Society of Oregon.

Tom specializes in endangered species propagation and restoration, the population dynamics of rare plants, population viability analysis, and monitoring. In addition, his interests include plant-pollinator interactions and plant systematics. He has a long-standing interest in coastal vegetation, including general patterns of plant distributions on the Pacific Coast and restoration of endangered species of beaches and dunes.