CPC Native Plant Summit 2023

Dr. Emily E. D. Coffey is VP of Conservation and Research at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Coffey joined the Garden in 2017 to lead the Conservation and Research Department where she leads and collaborates with a team of conservation scientists and horticulturists to expand the activities in conservation research, propagating and growing rare plants, and developing regional and international conservation initiatives for plants and ecosystems.  She received a B.S. (Hons) in Biology from University of Missouri – St. Louis, a M.S. with Distinction in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management from University of Oxford – UK, and Ph.D. in long-term ecology and conservation biology from the University of Oxford –UK at The Biodiversity Institute. She conduced her Post-Doctoral work at University of Oxford in The Biodiversity Institute. Before joining ABG, she was a faculty member of Biology at the University of North Carolina Asheville.  Dr. Coffey has broad botanical knowledge and experience with ex situ and in situ conservation, restoration ecology, community ecology, and biogeography. She is familiar with ecological processes and flora of many geographical settings including Appalachian Mountain Fens/Bogs, Caribbean islands, Missouri sandstone glades, Canary Island laurel forests, and Galápagos Islands. In the latter, she examined ecological baseline conditions for the humid highlands of Santa Cruz Island in order to distinguish temporal vegetation transitions, identify potential drivers of the transitions, and evaluate their importance for conservation and management practices. Findings from her research have been published in numerous journals including Science, Ecology, and Journal of Biogeography.

Wesley Knapp is the Chief Botanist at NatureServe, a leading biodiversity conservation non-profit in the United States. NatureServe leverages the power of science, data, and technology to guide biodiversity conservation and stewardship. Wes is a native of New England but fell in love with plants in the southeast. Wes has over 20 years of experience working in the NatureServe Network as a Botanist and Ecologist with both the Maryland and North Carolina Natural Heritage Programs. He has extensive field experience across much of the United States with additional fieldwork experience in Australia, Canada, and Central America. His research includes the first examination of the extinct plants of the United States and Canada, new plant species discoveries, and treatments of plant groups in various Floras and Manuals. He has also published two books including, Vascular Plants of Maryland, USA: A Comprehensive Account of the State’s Botanical Diversity which is freely available through the Smithsonian Scholarly Press. In 2021, Wes was part of the expedition that resulted in the rediscovery of the presumably extinct Quercus tardifolia. His research interests include identifying and preventing plant extinction events, describing undescribed plant species, systematics, nomenclature, ecology, and taxonomy. He has a B.S. from Catawba College, a M.S. from Delaware State University, and is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Alan Weakley’s lab. Wes’s work has had major media impact and has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the PBS NewsHour.

Executive Director of California Botanic Garden since 2013, Lucinda holds a Ph.D. in botany from Duke University. She has been Director of Research at California Botanic Garden since 2006 and continues to hold this position in conjunction with her role in leading the Garden as a whole.  Before joining California Botanic Garden, Lucinda was Curator of Botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), on the faculty at the University of Arizona, and led the science and education programs for the Organization for Tropical Studies. As a research scientist, her focus is on the large plant family Acanthaceae which she has studied most extensively in the Americas, but also in Africa.