2017 Program details

Jill Calabro
Jill Calabro manages all things science-y for the American Hort and the Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), including HRI’s annual grants program. She also promotes HRI-supported research results and dabbles in regulatory advocacy to help ensure success of the green industry. In her personal time, Jill chases after her five-year-old son and proudly knows the names of all the Thomas the Tank Engine friends.

Joe Chamberlin
Dr. Joe Chamberlin serves as National Product Development Manager for Turf and Ornamental crops at Valent USA LLC. He is also leads field development of organic and biorational insecticides on specialty crops. Following receipt of a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Georgia in 1988, he worked as a researcher at the University of Georgia and USDA-ARS. He then served as Entomology Group Leader for Yoder Brothers, a large producer of ornamental plants, before joining Valent T&O group in 1994. One of Dr. Chamberlin’s primary interests is the integrated management of invasive pests that affect greenhouse, nursery, and landscape ornamental plants.

Abigail Derby Lewis
Dr. Abigail Derby Lewis is a Senior Conservation Ecologist and Senior Program Manager for the Chicago Region at the Field Museum of Natural History. Abigail’s work focuses on large landscape conservation and climate change adaptation for urban nature. She is the project manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife “Urban Monarch Conservation Design” effort, and a lead partner on the Monarch Priority Species Working Group for the Chicago Metropolitan region.

Duke Elsner
Duke has been employed by Michigan State University since 1990. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Entomology from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in Entomology from the Pennsylvania State University. His current emphasis with MSU Extension is programming to support wild pollinator and monarch butterfly conservation, and working with commercial small fruit producers throughout northern Michigan. Duke is a frequent speaker for conservation groups, schools, garden clubs and many other entities in northern Michigan. Collecting and photographing insects, especially butterflies and moths, has been his personal passion for over 50 years.

Rebecca Finneran
Rebecca received a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture with emphasis in landscape design from Michigan State University. She has been serving Michigan as MSU Extension Horticulture Educator since 1987 where she helps the green industry and consumers learn about horticulture, the environment and pesticide safety. Finneran teaches and sponsors numerous consumer horticulture programs across the state and is a prolific writer. Finneran previously served on the Board of Directors for the Grand Rapids based Frederick Meijer Gardens for twelve years and is currently overseeing an urban display garden in Grand Rapids known as the “Grand Ideas Garden” located at MSU Extension.

Steve Foltz
Steve Foltz, Director of Horticulture at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, has been with the zoo for 29 years. A graduate from the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Ornamental Horticulture, Steve has taught the woody Landscape class at both Cincinnati State and Technical College and at the University of Cincinnati for the past 25 years. Steve has been a member of the Ohio Plant Selection Committee and is one of the original members of the Theodore Klein Plant Awards Committee in Kentucky since its beginning in 1995. Steve is a board member of the International Plant Propagators Society, Eastern Region and was honored with the 2016 Distinguished Contribution Award from the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association.

Mary M. Gardiner
Dr. Mary M. Gardiner received her Ph.D. in 2008 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University. Her research program focuses on the ecological value of urban vacant land. This work is concentrated in Cleveland, Ohio—a city that has experienced significant economic and population decline. Cleveland currently contains 27,000 vacant encompassing approximately 4,000 acres of land. The Gardiner lab examines how alternative vegetation design and management regimes influence the value of vacant land for the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. Mary is also a State Specialist in Extension and works with several stakeholder groups including home gardeners, Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists and urban farmers. Her extension programming focuses on identifying and attracting beneficial insects to gardens and farms to promote conservation and ecosystem services. In 2015, she released a book focused on natural enemies and their role in biological control in home gardens Titled: Good Garden Bugs: Everything You Need to Know about Beneficial Predatory Insects. She has also embraced the use of citizen science in her research with the statewide program, Pollination Investigators which engages volunteers in the study of pollination services.

Paul Glaum
Paul Glaum is a soon-to-be graduate from the University of Michigan in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His research focuses on wild pollinating insects and the external influences on their population dynamics in both natural and human altered settings. While honey bees may be the most well known pollinating insect, numerous pollinating insects play essential roles in agricultural systems and in the general maintenance of plant biodiversity. Paul and his collaborators study how one particular type of land use, urbanization, affects native bee communities. To that end, they have developed a multi-year and multi-faceted research project across cities in southeastern Michigan including Ann Arbor and Detroit. This research project has delivered pertinent data and allowed Glaum avenues to engage undergraduates in field work and research leading to honors theses and published work. Outside of research these projects have functioned as fantastic outreach opportunities with community gardeners, local apiarist groups and student groups. Using the connections made through this research Glaum and colleagues have held various informative talks and educational events aimed at audiences of all ages.

Damon Hall
Damon M. Hall is an Assistant Professor at Saint Louis University in the Center for Sustainability, a graduate-degree granting research institute. He completed a Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences as a Boone & Crockett Ph.D. Fellow in Conservation Policy at Texas A&M University. He holds an M.A. in Communication and a B.S. in Agriculture concentrating on Forestry and Natural resources both from Purdue University. At Purdue he was apiary manager of Dr. Hunt’s Honeybee’s Genetics Lab. His research examines the interactions between social and ecological systems where science, policy and culture meet.

Pierre Lau
Pierre Lau is a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University. He obtained his B.S. in Environmental Systems: Ecology, Behavior and Evolution from the University of California, San Diego. He started pollination research with Halictid bees in 2011 and transitioned to a honey bee behavioral ecology lab from 2011-2013. In 2014, he started his graduate program with Dr. Juliana Rangel and has been involved with projects involving honey bee nutritional ecology. In particular, he is interested in understanding honey bee pollen foraging preferences to improve overall colony health. He recently contributed his first peer-reviewed publication to understanding the salt preferences of honey bee water foragers (Lau and Nieh 2016) and is now using palynological tools for studying honey bee pollen foraging.

Gretchen LeBuhn
Dr. Gretchen LeBuhn is a professor of Biology at San Francisco State University and the Director of the Great Sunflower Project, a citizen science program. Her research spans the fields of ecology, biodiversity and conservation biology. She has worked on understanding and conserving plant and pollinator systems from the mountains of Ecuador and the Sierra Nevada of California to urban San Francisco.

Scott MacIvor
Scott MacIvor is an Assistant Professor of Urban Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He is interested in plants and pollinators in cities and, more broadly, the biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of green infrastructure, including public and private gardens, parks and green roofs. Scott is also a researcher at the Green Roof Innovation (GRIT) lab at the University of Toronto in the faculty of Landscape Architecture, and works with the city of Toronto Planning Division on a number of projects, which have included the ‘Bees of Toronto’ Biodiversity Series book, and the ‘Guidelines for Biodiverse Green Roofs’.

Andony Melathopoulos
Andony is a new Assistant Professor who, since 2016, has been leading Oregon State University’s efforts to design, implement and evaluate a statewide pollinator health program. OSU’s work around pollinator health comes out of a mandate from the Oregon Legislature that followed bumble-bee kills around the use of neonicotinoid pesticide use on urban shade trees. Last year he provided training to over 1000 pesticide applicators on how to reduce pesticide exposure to pollinating insects, he hosts a weekly podcast on pollinator health and is currently working on a number of education products designed for helping homeowners and landscapers better understand how to manage pests while minimizing impacts to pollinators. He also sits on the steering committee of the Oregon Bee Project, which coordinates pollinator health work across state agencies. He has over fifteen years of experience in pollinator health extension, which includes over 30 peer-reviewed papers, speaking at industry and public meetings, writing for trade journals (over 40 articles), conducting qualitative risk assessments for government agencies and developing public education activities.

Audrey Muratet
Audrey Muratet received her Ph.D. in Ecology from the Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris. She has studied and explored for more than 15 years the diversity, composition and dynamics of urban biodiversity. Her main interests cover the study of invasive species, the role of urban wastelands, the impact of pesticides on biodiversity, and the evaluation of landscape connectivity in human populated areas, especially the region of Paris. Her research also stresses the importance of human perception in urban ecology and conservation, calling for more collaboration between ecologists and social scientists. Finally, she continuously gets involved in the design and the promotion of citizen science programs. She conducted her research at the Center for Ecology and Conservation Sciences (National Museum of Natural History). She then developed applications of her work within the Department of Seine-Saint-Denis and the Regional Agency for Nature and Biodiversity in Île-de-France (Natureparif).

Laurence Packer
Laurence Packer is a Professor of Biology at York University where he has worked since 1988. He teaches Entomology and Biodiversity courses. His research is on bees. He and his students have published a book “Keeping the Bees” published by HarperCollins as well as “Bees: A Close-up Look at Pollinators Around the World” with Sam Droege, Voyageur Press (both for sale in the lobby after the event). He and his team have described over 100 new species of bees. The collection that he has started at York University now includes several hundred thousand specimens with examples from well over 100 countries; it is one of the most diverse bee collections in the world. He was a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Evaluation Group for Ecology and Evolution. His research has been funded by the latter organization as well as National Geographic, Genome Canada and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. His general public presentations reach hundreds to thousands of people each year.

Cristi Palmer
Dr. Cristi Palmer, the IR-4 Ornamental Horticulture Program Manager for 12 years, has managed a national research program collaborating with trade organizations, researchers (60 – 70 annually), and registrants (25-30 annually) to develop supporting registration data for grower-driven priorities. These activities aid the green industry by ensuring a broad range of tools are available when needed. In addition, Palmer has managed research collaborations with 32 scientists at 20 institutions on 18 Cooperative Agreements with USDA-APHIS since 2009 studying invasive pathogens and pests, such as gladiolus rust, European pepper moth, boxwood blight and impatiens downy mildew. Palmer is also facilitating the SCRI funded project “Protecting Pollinators with Economically Feasible and Environmentally Sound Ornamental Horticulture” with a consortium of 16 scientists at 11 institutions.

Daniel A. Potter
Daniel A. Potter is a Professor of Entomology at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA, he has studied the management of pests and beneficial insects in urban landscapes for more than 40 years. He teaches courses in Horticultural Entomology and Insect-Plant Relationships, and has supervised > 40 graduate students. Dr. Potter is a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America and received ESA’s National Distinguished Achievement Awards in Urban Entomology (1995), Teaching (1999), and Horticultural Entomology (2006). His industry recognitions include the U.S. Golf Association National Green Section Award (2010), the Professional Land Care Networks’s Leadership Award (2008), and the American Nursery and Landscape Associations Distinguished Achievement Award (2006).

Caydee Savinelli
Caydee Savinelli is the Pollinator and IPM Stewardship Lead at Syngenta. In this role, she leads the development and implementation of strategies and tactics for the pollinator health and stewardship, integrated pest management, insect resistance management and biodiversity conservation initiatives. She is also leading Syngenta’s Operation Pollinator program along with its research and implementation efforts. She has focused on pest management, product development and crop production throughout her 33-year career and has worked in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Caydee holds a Ph.D. in Entomology with a minor in Crop Science from North Carolina State University and a B.A. in Biology from Gettysburg College. Caydee’s interest in agriculture and entomology started in childhood during the time spent at her grandfather’s orange grove in Florida.

Casey Sclar
Casey is the Executive Director of the American Public Gardens Association. Their team connects, protects, and champions over 600 gardens and their 9300+ allied members located throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and 24 other countries. These gardens reach well over 100 million people per year, continually envisioning “a world where public gardens are indispensable.” His work experience in horticulture and plant science spans over three decades. Prior to Association service, he spent 15 years at Longwood Gardens (Kennett Square, PA) directing integrated pest management, soils, composting, land stewardship and other sustainability programs. He holds a B.S. degree in Horticulture from Colorado State University, and received the American Public Gardens Association’s Professional Citation in 2011 for outstanding achievements in public horticulture. Casey connects plants, people and the environment through publications, presentations and service. He sits on the Advisory Council for Seed Your Future (a nationwide movement to promote careers in horticulture), is the Inaugural Chair of the National Initiative for Consumer Horticulture (a collaborative effort to set national research priorities for the end-use horticulture industry and raise awareness of its contributions to our health, economy and the environment), recently began service on the board of the Xerces Society, and is active in movements and organizations that promote pollinator and plant conservation, while mitigating the threats to endangered species.

David Smitley
Dr. Dave Smitley works closely with the turf grass, nursery and floriculture industries on identifying insect pest problems, and researching best management practices to address them. Basic and applied research is followed with extension recommendations for growers. Some of Dr. Smitley’s industry contributions include the introduction of Entomophaga maimaiga, a natural fungal pathogen of gypsy moth, with decreased state and forest defoliation due to gypsy moth to less than 1/10th of what is was in the early ‘90s. Development of new strategies for emerald ash borer including product that homeowners can purchase, and the most widely used professional product for landscape trees, as well as the introduction of Ovavesicula popilliae, a natural pathogen of Japanese Beetle, into Michigan in 1999. In the past four years, Dr. Smitley’s lab has worked with the greenhouse and nursery industries to develop best management strategies for growing annuals, perennials, trees, and shrubs that will be safe for pollinators. This led to organizing the National Protecting Pollinators Conference.

Mace Vaughan
Mace Vaughan serves as the Xerces Society’s Pollinator Conservation Program CoDirector and a Joint Pollinator Conservation Specialist to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Mace has led Xerces’ Pollinator Conservation programs since 2003. In his tenure at the Xerces Society, the pollinator program has grown from a small pilot project on California farms to the world’s largest team of pollinator conservation experts. His work with other staff at the Xerces Society and the USDA NRCS has led to the implementation or protection of hundreds of thousands of acres of pollinator habitat. Through education and outreach events he has directly reached thousands of agency staff and farmers.

Frank Wong
Frank Wong, Ph.D., is a Senior Regulatory Affairs Consultant with Bayer CropScience. Frank has a BS in biochemistry from UC Davis and a Ph.D. from Cornell in Plant Pathology. Currently, Frank is responsible for working with broad industry groups to develop solutions for pest management issues. Prior to joining Bayer, Dr. Wong was an associate professor and statewide extension specialist at the University of California, Riverside, from 2001-2011. Frank is active in numerous professional organizations including the Crop Science Society of America, American Phytopathology Society, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, National Pest Management Association of America, American Mosquito Control Association, & National Association of Landscape Professionals.

Elsa Youngsteadt
Elsa Youngsteadt is a Research Associate in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at NC State University, where she studies pollination ecology and the effects of urbanization and climate change on insects, including bees. She maintains an active native-bee outreach program at NC State and developed outreach materials that are used statewide. After completing her Ph.D. in Entomology at NC State, she worked as a science writer and editor for American Scientist magazine. Since returning to the world of insects in 2012, her research has taken her up and down the East Coast, from the sandhills of Fort Bragg to the streets of Boston and New York City.

Poster Submission Deadline: Sept. 1, 2017

Submit your poster at the same time as you register for the conference. Those who plan to submit a poster should have the following information ready when they register:

• Title of poster
• In a few sentences, describe how your poster is relevant to protecting pollinators
• In a few sentences, describe how your poster is relevant to urban landscapes

Tour 1: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore & Winery Tour

October 11, 2017, 1 to 5:30 PM
Participants on the tour will enjoy the fantastic vistas of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which was voted the most beautiful place in America by Good Morning America in 2011. Miles of sand beach and 450’ bluffs provide stunning views of Lake Michigan. Guests will travel the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, a 7.4 mile loop, through the park and enjoy the Glenn Lake and Lake Michigan Overlooks. Please note that participants will not have time to do the dune climb which can take 2-3 hours. Participants will then travel to Rove Estate Vineyard & Winery and will enjoy an hour of wine tasting and relaxation, which offers guests a view of the Leelanau countryside.

Learn more about Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and Rove Estate Vineyard.

This tour will include some mild to moderate walking. Please wear the proper attire. Due to the wine tasting event, all participants on the tour must be over 21 years in age to participate.

Tour 2: Grand Traverse Butterfly House, Botanic Gardens and Winery Tour

October 11, 2017, 1 to 5:30 PM
Participants on the tour will be fascinated by a wide array of live butterflies, moths, beetles, bees and numerous other creatures at the Grand Traverse Butterfly House and Insect Zoo. The proprietors strive to provide a meaningful educational experience to all visitors. The next stop will be the Botanic Garden at Historic Barns Park, on the grounds of the former state hospital in Traverse City. This budding young garden, nestled on a 25-acre site is still in development, which emphasizes on plant species native to Northwest Michigan and the enhancement of habitats for various forms of wildlife. A number of historic buildings on the site have been saved and restored, providing architectural interest to the gardens. The tour ends at the Left Foot Charlie Winery, also on the former state hospital grounds. Featuring low-volume production of wines and ciders made from unique local vineyards and orchards, participants will be able to taste the “terroir” of the Grand Traverse region.

Learn more about the butterfly house, botanic gardens and winery.

This tour will include some mild to moderate walking at the gardens. Please wear the proper attire. Due to the wine tasting event, all participants on the tour must be over 21 years in age to participate.

Date/Time	Activity
Monday, Oct. 9
5:30 - 6 PM	Registration Open
7 - 7:45 PM	Opening Keynote - Laurence Packer
7:45 - 10 PM	Mix N Mingle
Tuesday, Oct. 10
7 - 8 AM	Registration Open
8 - 8:45 AM	Breakfast
8:45 - 10:20 AM	Session 1: Function of Pollinators in Ornamental Landscapes
10:30 - 12:05 PM	Session 2: Pesticides and Pollinators
12:05 - 1 PM	Lunch
1 - 2:55 PM	Session 3: Pollinator Health and Habitat in Urban Landscapes
3:15 - 5 PM	Session 4: Best Management Practices in Ornamental Landscapes
5 - 6 PM	Break and Poster Set-Up
6 - 6:45 PM	Dinner on your own
7 - 10 PM	Poster Session
Wednesday, Oct. 11
8 - 8:45 AM	Breakfast
8:45 - 10:20 AM	Session 1: Boots on the Ground– Efforts, Challenges and Opportunities for Protecting Pollinators
10:30 - 12 Noon	Session 2: Educating the Public
12:05 - 12:45	Lunch
1 PM	Adjourn for those not on the tour
1 - 5:30 PM	Tours