Brett Engstrom, Breaklands Botany and Ecology

For the past 18 years, Brett Engstrom has been a freelance botanist/ecologist specializing in inventories for rare, threatened, and endangered plants, and natural communities, throughout Vermont and New Hampshire. His clients include Natural Heritage Programs, conservation organizations, companies, and individuals.  He also prepares natural community maps of lands ranging from a few acres to entire towns. Brett is a part-time faculty member at Lyndon State College, and has conducted workshops on a variety of botanical and ecological topics for the New England Wildflower Society, New Hampshire Fish & Game Department, Friends of Quincy Bog, and the Montshire Museum.  He has a special fondness for grasses and sedges, wherever he goes. 

Elizabeth Farnsworth, Introduction to Ferns and Their Relatives 

Elizabeth Farnsworth (Ph.D., Harvard University) is a biologist, scientific illustrator, and co-author of the Peterson Field Guide to the Ferns and the Connecticut River Boating Guide: Source to Sea. As a Bullard Research Fellow at Harvard University, she researched the ecology and geographical distribution of rare plants in New England, data she gathered as Senior Research Ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society. She has served on the faculty of Smith and Hampshire Colleges, and is a member of the graduate faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has been a scientific consultant to the National Park Service, the U. S. Forest Service, the Massachusetts and Connecticut Natural Heritage Programs, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, and has conducted scientific research on a variety of ecosystems throughout the world. 

Scott LaGreca, Lichens of New England 

Scott LaGreca completed his undergraduate degree at Cornell University, and received his Ph.D. in Botany from Duke University. He was the Curatorial/Research Associate at the Farlow Herbarium, Harvard University for over 6 years, and the Curator of Lichens at the Natural History Museum, London, UK, for over 3 years. He is currently a research associate at both Harvard University and the New York State Museum. An active member of both the American Bryological & Lichenological Society and the British Lichen Society (with collaborators on both shores), his current projects involve the revision of Bermuda's lichen flora and environmental/air pollution monitoring surveys in New England and New York. 

Leonard Reitsma, Avian Ecology: Populations and Communities 

Len Reitsma received his B.S. in Biology from William Patterson University and his Ph.D. in Biology from Dartmouth College. He has been professor of Biology at Plymouth State University since 1992, and is currently chair of the Biology Department. Len is an active researching avian ecologist specializing in migrating songbirds; in particular American Redstarts, Black-throated Blue Warblers, Norther Waterthrushes, Louisiana Waterthrushes, and Canada Warblers. His research takes him to New Hampshire, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. He is the recipient of PSU’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and is President and Co-Founder of NEILE (New England Institute for Landscape Ecology). 

Rick Van de Poll, Fantastic Fungi of Northern New England

Rick Van de Poll is the principal of Ecosystem Management Consultants (EMC) of Sandwich, New Hampshire. Beginning in the mid-1980’s, his company was one of the first to perform natural resource inventories for the public and private sector of New England. With an emphasis on biodiversity conservation, Rick has included inventories of fungi among many of his projects. He has completed field-based biological inventories on over 100,000 acres of land, most of which included floristic analysis of fungi; and he has recorded over 1200 mushroom species in New Hampshire, including a number of undescribed species. After studying with Dr. Harry Thiers at San Francisco State University for 2 years, he taught Mycology at Antioch New England from 1985 to 2001, and currently teaches Mycology as an adjunct faculty at Plymouth State University. As an instructor, Rick has presented dozens of walks and workshops throughout New England. He co-founded the Monadnock Mushroom Club in 1988, and founded the local Sandwich Area Mushroom (SAM) Club in 2001.