About the Conference

My career in restoration began after a great escape from New York City and the horrendous world of television in 2001. In the ensuing 24 years, I worked on a variety of restoration projects from coastal wilderness to degraded subalpine campgrounds for Olympic National Park to riparian restoration projects on the Klamath, Trinity and Sacramento Rivers in California. I earned a Masters in Science degree from the University of Washington in 2007. From 2008-2018 I was the lead ecologist responsible for planning and implementing the revegetation of two reservoirs on the Elwha River after the removal of two large dams. My work on the Elwha has been published by Northwest Science (Brown and Chenoweth 2008), USGS (Woodward et al. 2011), and most recently by Restoration Ecology (Prach et al. 2019 and Chenoweth et al. 2021 and Chenoweth et al. 2023). My work on the Elwha got the attention of the Yurok Tribe who, in 2019, recruited me to come south and be the lead ecologist to plan and implement the revegetation of the three large reservoirs exposed after dam removal on the Klamath River, the largest dam removal effort in the world. Seed collection and plant material planning has been a crucial effort of both dam removal projects and has led to the development of the Klamath-Trinity Seed Program, a new program designed to collect and propagate a high diversity of native species sourced from the Klamath-Trinity watersheds and made available to indigenous tribes and federal agencies active in restoration projects in the region.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. Robin’s newest book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (November 2024), is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.

Pat Reynolds is a restoration ecologist with more than 30 years of professional experience in the design, implementation and monitoring of habitat restoration projects including the effective use of native seed. He is the Director of River Partners’ Native Seed and Plant program, the former General Manager of Hedgerow Farms and a past Associate Restoration Ecologist at H.T. Harvey & Associates. Pat sits on the board of the California Native Grasslands Association, the Yolo County Planning Commission and is the Restoration Ecologist on the Science and Technical Advisory Committee for the Yolo County Habitat Agency. In the habitat restoration profession, Pat is known for his integrity, friendliness, and habitat restoration expertise. He brings his in-depth knowledge of habitat restoration to every project and particularly enjoys providing recommendations to clients and collaborating with partners. His unique set of skills and expertise are an asset to every restoration project he partners on.