Native Plant Connection Team

Gail Langellotto

is statewide coordinator of Oregon State University’s Extension Master Gardener Program, and Principle Investigator of the OSU Garden Ecology Lab.

Cammie Donaldson

For over 25 years, Cammie has worked with FANN members and partner organizations to promote the benefits and availability of native plants for restoration and sustainability, improve native plant production and use, and make native plant businesses more successful. As the Executive Director of FANN, Cammie leads 150+ member businesses including growers, retailers, environmental service companies and landscape architects, designers, installers and maintenance firms. She also manages the Native Plant Horticulture Foundation, a closely allied charitable nonprofit helping to recruit and develop native plant professionals.

Alicia Rihn

joined the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville in July 2020. She is a Minnesota native with a background in specialty crop marketing research. Her research and extension programs focus on consumer behavior, willingness-to-pay, and perceptions of specialty crops and niche products. She is interested in addressing how people perceive products, interact with them, and the best marketing strategies to add value for customers and businesses alike. She uses eye-tracking technologies and applied economics to generate actionable insights based on these topics of interest. Her current research topics include plant benefit information, native plant perceptions, alternative pest control methods, ecommerce, and point-of-sale information.

Sandra B. Wilson

is a professor in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on native plant propagation and production as well as evaluating the invasive potential of ornamental plants.

Meghan Avolio

is an Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Her research is focused on developing a more thorough understanding of the mechanisms by which humans directly and indirectly alter plant populations and communities and whether there are consequences for ecosystem function. She works in both grassland and urban ecosystems.

Mallory Mead

is an undergraduate student in the Oregon State University Department of Horticulture, and a member of OSU’s Garden Ecology Lab. For her undergraduate thesis project, she is studying how native bees use petals from native, cultivated, and hybid Clarkia plants. She is a 2022 recipient the Garden Club of America’s Mary T. Carothers Summer Environmental Studies Scholarship. Mallory also won a Scholar’s Award from the American Society for Horticultural Science, in recognition of her scholastic achievement.

Roger Triplett

is co-owner of Green Seasons Nursery in Parrish, Florida. Green Seasons Nursery specializes in hardy, salt tolerant, coastal species and robust upland shrubs and grasses. They were the first to grow sea oats, and are currently the only supplier for a number of plants that are native to southern coastal ecosystems.

Other team members include:

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