Our Whitney and Anna Harris Conservation Forum is an opportunity for the public to engage and learn from top scholars on incredible conservation work going on in our world as well as discuss environmental threats most relevant to our community. The evening's format usually consists of two or more speakers with a dinner break (provided by the Harris Center), followed up by a Q&A session. This event is completely free to the public and possible thanks to the insight of Whitney and Anna Harris, who found value in the Harris Center and creating opportunities for the public and students to have access to different forms of conservation ecology knowledge, alongside our strong partnership with the Saint Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. Our 2024 Conservation Forum event will be co-hosting the Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainability Event Series. The Harris Center event will take place October 10, 2024 at the Saint Louis Zoo.
Whitney and Anna Harris Conservation Forum 2023
This event occurred September 26, 2023 at the Saint Louis Zoo.
Andrew Hurley, Ph. D.
Professor - University of Missouri-St. Louis
Andrew Hurley is Professor of History at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has written widely on topics related to the urban environment and the history of St. Louis. He is active in the Museums, Heritage, and Public History Program at UMSL and collaborates with many museums and cultural agencies in the St. Louis area. His publications include Environmental Inequalities: Class, and Race in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 (University of North Carolina Press) and Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis (Missouri Historical Society Press.) Currently, Professor Hurley is writing a book about the 1936 Heat Wave in the American Midwest.
Kaylee Arnold, Ph. D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow - Washington University
Kaylee Arnold is a disease ecologist who studies how anthropogenic disturbances impact host-associated microbial communities and infectious disease transmission. Kaylee received her PhD from the University of Georgia earlier this year and is now a Living Earth Collaborative Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. As a postdoctoral fellow, Kaylee is currently working under the supervision of Drs. Rachel Penczykowski (WUSTL), Danielle Lee (SIUE), and Solny Adalsteinsson (Tyson Research Center) to explore plant microbiomes and fungal pathogen transmission across an urbanization gradient and to develop STEM projects with K-12 public schools in St. Louis.
Steven Duong, AICP
AECOM - Vice President and Principal, Urbanism + Planning
Steven Duong, AICP is a Principal with AECOM, overseeing the Urbanism + Planning (U+P) practice for the firm's West Region. U+P is a collective of urban strategists comprised of experts in areas such as urban design, multi-modal planning, civic policy, data analytics, economic and real estate advisory, climate and resilience planning, and community planning.
Steven has led a wide variety of projects in this role, most recently serving as the lead consultant for the City of Dallas 100 Resilient Cities plan and the Texas Hyperloop proposal. His focus is on urban resilience, smart cities, and master planning. Steven also served as the Director of the North Central Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association, as a member of the Urban Design Advisory Council for the City of Dallas, and as a professor with UTA's College of Planning and Landscape Architecture. He has received numerous accolades, including being identified as a Top 20 Under 40 Top Young Professional for Engineering News Record in 2017, receiving the Greater Dallas Planning Council's Urban Pioneer Award, and profiled as a Top Innovator for Dallas Innovates magazine.
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On October 6th, 2022, community members and students had an opportunity to listen and engage with conservation experts from around the St. Louis metropolitan area. This event registration maxed out and featured three local, accomplished biologists who discussed interesting and timely topics. The forum took place at our partner institution, the Saint Louis Zoo. With the huge movement toward more natural backyards and outdoor spaces, the focus of this conservation forum was on the importance of creatures and plants many of us spend time and money trying to manage or eliminate. Participants were wowed with presentations that included demonstrations on how insects and arachnids communicate (vibrational communication). Talks also addressed rodent behavior, environments, and the positive and negative impacts of human/rodent interaction. Finally, haikus were presented that related to different plants likely in your backyard, how they're important to the environment, and how humans can and do use them. Maybe those violets and clover in your yard aren't so bad afterall. In addition to having the opportunity to listen to these incredible speakers, learn about their fascinating research, and engage in a lively, fun panel discussion, the Harris Center provided boxed sandwich dinners to participants.
Kasey Fowler-Finn, Ph. D.
Associate Professor - Saint Louis University
Presentation: Discover the extraordinary world of spiders and insects in your own backyard
Dr. Fowler-Finn’s career as an arachnologist started with her very first field guide to Spiders at age 5. She is now an Associate Professor at Saint Louis University leading a lab of arachnologists and entomologists fascinated by the natural world and dedicated to understanding the impacts of human activity. Outside of her laboratory, you can find Kasey rock climbing, hiking, and spending almost every day with her family of four in Tower Grove Park.
Danielle Lee, Ph. D.
Associate Professor - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Presentation: Evaluating and working along environmental gradients to develop frameworks to understand nuisance rodent ecology
Danielle N. Lee is a biologist and outreach scientist who studies the behavioral biology and natural history of nuisance rodents over human-modified environmental gradients. Her research includes examining behavioral variation of field mice in the Metro St. Louis area and the natural history of African giant pouched rats of Tanzania. She is well known for her science promotion and outreach in social media. Her research and science outreach and advocacy have been recognized by The Explorers Club (2021), National Geographic Society (2017 Emerging Explorer), TED Fellows Program (2015), Essence Magazine Woke 100 (2019) EBONY Magazine’s Power 100 (2014) and the White House Champions of Change in STEM Diversity and Access (2014). You can follow her for commentary on science + society and science research adventures on Twitter or Instagram at @DNLee5.
Nicole Miller-Struttmann, Ph. D.
Associate Professor - Webster University
Presentation: Weedy Plants and Why We Love Them
Nicole Miller-Struttmann is the Laurance L. Browning Jr. Chair at Webster University. She and her students study plants and their pollinators, with a current focus on urban bees. She runs a citizen science program called Shutterbee and enjoys photographing and collecting bees with her own young family.
