Explore Plants

Project Personnel

As Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Susan Rieff provides oversight, direction, and institutional support for the Native Plant Information Network. As a former employee of the National Wildlife Federation and advocate for conservation efforts, Ms. Rieff brings a National vision and wealth of experience to this project.

Dr. Damon Waitt holds a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Texas in Austin where he studied the evolutionary ecology and population genetics of Phlox. Dr. Waitt has served on the faculty at Saint Edward's University and Southwestern University and has extensive experience developing web-based information resources. Dr. Waitt serves as the Wildflower Center's botanical authority and is the author of the Wildflower Center's Native Plant Information Network.

Joe Marcus holds a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture from the University of Georgia in Athens. Mr. Marcus developed and maintained the system for management of plant accession records and garden mapping at the Wildflower Center and manages the plant answer services.

As Center webmaster, Philip Hawkins has been instrumental in enhancing the speed, reliability, and performance of the www.wildflower.org. Mr. Hawkins has a Bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University and extensive experience developing open source web applications.

As the librarian and archivist for the Wildflower Center, has intimate knowledge of the Center's image collection. She has organized and inventoried the collection as well as assessed its preservation needs. Melissa holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Sceince from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has experience with cataloging procedures and image digitization projects.

Over the years, numerous staff have helped develop and mange the resources contained in the Native Plant Information Network. Special thanks to Kathryn Kennedy, Flo Oxley, Sage Kawecki and Stephen Brueggerhoff for their contributions to this effort.

Many volunteers have contributed hundreds of hours of their time to research information, scan images, develop databases, and manage collections. Without the help and support of volunteers like Janice Charnley, Susan Richter, Peter Knight, Nan Hampton, Emil Lazzeri, Ellen Bruce, Hannah and Rachel Waitt and others, this project would not have been possible.