We are posting speaker bios as we receive them–for a complete list of speakers, please see the schedule overview, below.

Joe Boggs

Joe Boggs is an Assistant Professor with OSU Extension, Hamilton County, and the OSU Department of Entomology.  He has 30 years of experience specializing in tree and shrub diagnostics and pest management.  Joe averages over 100 teaching presentations per year.  His weekly radio segment, “Buggy Joe Boggs Report,” runs from April through October on the Saturday morning show, “In the Garden with Ron Wilson,” (iHeartRadio: WKRC, Cincinnati; News Radio 610 WTVN, Columbus).  The Cincinnati show is syndicated to 34 radio stations in 12 states.

Gerardo Camilo

Gerardo Camilo received his B.S. in biology in 1986 from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. He then moved to Texs to attend graduate school, and received an M.S. in entomology in 1988, and Ph.D. in 1992 from Texas Tech University. He was a postdoc from 1993 to 1995 at the Institute from Tropical Ecosystem Studies in Puerto Rico studying food web ecology and disturbance. Currently, he is a professor of biology at Saint Louis University where he researches the ecology and conservation of bees in urban environments. His research also addresses aspects of socio-economic and cultural norms influences on bee diversity. Another research focus in his lab is the role of bee pollination in the evolutionary ecology of plant mating systems. Dr. Camilo is also a conservation fellow of the St. Louis Zoo and the Living Earth Collaborative.

Olivia Carril

Dr. Olivia Carril has been studying native bees for over 25 years. She received her BS and MSc from Utah State University, and a PhD from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She is the coauthor of The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees, Common Bees of Eastern North America, and the soon to be published Common Bees of Western North America. She is currently conducting several large-scale surveys of bees in northern New Mexico, studying the pollinators of several rare plants, and working to develop a long-term monitoring protocol for use in surveying bees on public lands. In her spare time, she teaches science to middle schoolers, and hangs out with her two adorable daughters and her handsome husband.

Keith Delaplane

Keith Delaplane is Professor of Entomology and Director of the honey bee program at the University of Georgia where he and his students study honey bee pollination, disease ecology, and social evolution. He is author of the 2000 book Crop Pollination by Bees published by CABI, and in 2021 the first of a two-volume second edition of the same title was released. Keith was lead editor of the 2020 edition of ABC and XYZ in Bee Culture, an encyclopedia of bee biology and beekeeping in continuous print by the AI Root Company since 1876. In 2014 he was inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his research and education efforts in honey bee health and management throughout the UK.

Gordon Fitch

Gordon Fitch is an ecologist interested in understanding how environmental stressors influence plant-bee interactions of all kinds, and what the consequences are for the health and fitness of both bees and plants. He is currently an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, studying how and why parasite infection influences bumble bee foraging preferences; his prior work has focused on the role of urbanization and agricultural intensification in shaping plant-bee interactions. He will begin as an Assistant Professor of Biology at York University in Toronto in Fall 2023, as a member of their Centre for Bee Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation (BEEc).

Becky Griffin

Becky Griffin is University of Georgia (UGA)’s Community & School Garden Coordinator where she works with Extension agents across the state helping create impactful gardens.  She is also a Pollinator Health Associate and a Georgia certified beekeeper. Emphasizing the ecosystem of the garden and teaching workshops on beneficial entomology and integrated pest management are important parts of her work. Becky is the coordinator of the Great Georgia Pollinator Census which is a passion project for her.  Becky has been with UGA Extension for almost 11 years and enjoys the collaborations and friendships that working with the University brings.  Becky represents the Southeastern US region on the Community Seed Network Advisory Panel and sits on the board of directors for The Bee Cause.  She is also part of the University’s Native Plants and Beneficial Insects Working Group and works with the Pollinator Plants of the Year program.

Jennifer Leavey

Jennifer Leavey the director of the Georgia Tech Urban Honey Bee Project, an interdisciplinary educational initiative of the Georgia Tech College of Sciences for which Leavey coordinates sustainability-related educational initiatives. Leavey also serves as an instructor for the Vertically Integrated Projects Team, Living Building Science, that studies physical and biological questions related to the systems in and around the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, and serves as Assistant Dean for Faculty Mentoring for the College of Sciences.

Sujaya Rao

Dr. Sujaya Rao is Professor and Department Head for Entomology at the University of Minnesota. Her prior research as a faculty member at Oregon State University focused on integrated pest management until a serendipitous observation that native bees were drawn to blue traps used by her in a pest monitoring study led to the discovery of a new monitoring tool for native bees. Subsequently, her research was extended to include native bee surveys, foraging and nesting behaviors, and crop pollination. She collaborated with colleagues across diverse disciplines on novel projects such as the creation of a wireless sensor for tracking bees and understanding the strong attraction of native bees to the blue traps, the intriguing linden-associated bee mortality, and soil habitats selected for nesting by ground-dwelling bees. Sujaya has also taught courses on native bees and led innovative education programs that engaged K-12 students and university students in bee research.

Rachel Smith

As a Master’s student in horticulture, I work with Dr. Jim Affolter and the conservation team at the Mimsie Lanier Center for Native Plant Studies (MLCNPS), the headquarters for conservation research at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. My area of study pertains to ornamental and ecological performance of select Monarda species and cultivars. I also obtained my BS in horticulture from UGA in 2018, while working as an intern at the MLCNPS. After completing my MS, I want to help revitalize urban spaces by using best management practices that put wildlife hospitality first.

Anne Spafford

Ms. Anne Spafford, MLA, is a Professor of Landscape Design in the Department of Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University. Her teaching career spans over 20 years and won many teaching awards, including being inducted into NC State University’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers and a 2021 NCSU Alumni Association Distinguished Undergraduate Professor. Her courses include Intro to Landscape Design, Sustainable Residential Landscape Design, Principles of Planting Design, Intro to Permaculture: Sustainable Living, Green Infrastructure: The Functional Role of Plants in the Urban Environment; and a Home Landscape Design course for non-majors and homeowners. She is passionate about all of the subjects that she teaches (and there is substantial overlap between them), but she has a particular fondness for planting design—under which she excels in pollinator habitats, rain gardens, therapeutic gardens, and residential gardens. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Horticulture, which provided a foundation in plants, plant sciences, and small-scale design. Her Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture provided a foundation in cultural and social issues of design and research applied design as well as experience in designing larger projects. She is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Design Program at NC State University where she is studying the effects of urban streetscape design on human well-being. Anne has co-authored two books: Pollinator Gardening for the South: Creating Sustainable Habitats (2021 UNC Press, with Danesha Seth Carley) and Rain Gardening in the South: Ecologically Designed Gardens for Drought, Deluge, and Everything In Between (c. 2009 Eno Publishers, with Helen Kraus). Rain Gardening in the South received the prestigious Gold Medal Award for Best Technical Book from the Garden Writer’s Association and the Benjamin Franklin Award from Independent Publishers.

Doug Sponsler

Doug Sponsler is an entomologist and ecologist whose work revolves around the nexus of flowers, insects, and people. He completed his PhD in entomology at the Ohio State University and is currently a postdoc in the department Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at the University of Würzburg. He lives in central Germany with his wife, three daughters, three ant colonies, a hamster, and — most recently and questionably — a dog.

Toby Tsang

Toby P. N. Tsang is a post-doctoral researcher at University of Toronto Scarborough, interested in community and global change ecology.

Paige Warren

Paige Warren has been pursuing urban ecology research for the past 22 years, working in cities around the United States. Research in Dr. Warren’s lab seeks to understand processes generating and maintaining biological diversity in a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by humans. She focuses on the impacts of urbanization on animals, from the population to the community level, as well as the relationships between humans and urban nature.  She led an NSF-funded Urban Long Term Research Area – Exploratory (ULTRA-Ex) project in Boston, plays a leading role in Long-Term Ecological Research projects in Phoenix and Baltimore, and co-led an international working group focused on biodiversity in cities.