Doug Ladd

Keynote Speaker, 2025
The Importance of Prairies, Native Plants, and What You Can Do. Go Forth and Plant!

For more than 40 years, Doug has been involved with prairie and woodland ecology, fire management, fire ecology, conservation planning, natural area assessment, and ecological management, restoration, and research. He worked for The Nature Conservancy for 33 years, serving as director of conservation for the Missouri program. Doug is known throughout the United States as an accomplished conservation biologist and botanist. His mentorship has guided the careers of many others in the natural areas fields and his leadership has shaped conservation perspectives and methods across the Midwest.

His recent work has concentrated on vegetation and fire ecology of Midwestern prairies and woodlands, developing assessment and ecological monitoring protocols for terrestrial vegetation, and ecoregional conservation planning. As a federally certified fire leader, he has instructed fire training courses in the United States and Central America. Doug is also a leading lichenologist and has researched lichens in the Midwest and the Great Plains. His ongoing work with Ozark lichens has resulted in the discovery of several species and genera new to science.

Doug is currently a research associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden and a senior lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches courses in conservation, botany, and ecology.