Understory Initiative Board of Directors
Kathy Kellerman
Board Chair
Born and raised in Missouri, Kate spent the last quarter-century in California working in habitat restoration and native plant propagation. She has a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and a BS in Biology from Reed College. After recently moving to a homestead in the Rogue River area, she has plunged into permaculture, land stewardship, and managing her riparian and woodland acres for ecological diversity and vitality. She feels fortunate to connect with TUI and its partners to further support ecological restoration and preservation.
Kevin Talbert
Board Vice-Chair
Kevin Talbert is an active volunteer in many community and conservation organizations. He is currently Board member and past president of the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy as well as a board member of the Crater Lake Natural History Association and the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. Kevin enjoys hiking, rafting, camping, birding and reading.
Kathy Kentta-Robinson
Board Treasurer
Kathy currently is the Project Coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, (CTSI) Healthy Traditions program. She is an enrolled member of CTSI and serves her community as an educator, culture bearer, promotes healthy lifeways, leading native plant restoration and enhancement projects on tribal lands, and harvesting traditional foods and medicines. Her family made it a social family activity to gather roots, berries, as well as harvest Clams, Mussels, Dungeness crab, and fish the Siletz River. Healthy Traditions activities reinforce our connection to the land, rivers and sea. Kathy directed the development of curriculum for 6th grade students in a partnership with The Institute for Applied Ecology. The workbooks “Estuaries Ecology Curriculum” and “Wetlands Ecology Curriculum” are available as free downloads from the Institute for Applied Ecology website, or CTSI website.
Kathryn Prive
Board Member & Executive Director
Kathryn grew up in Minnesota but has called the west coast home since 2003. She has a M.S. in population genetics and ecological restoration from Oregon State University and a B.S in Environmental Science from the University of Oregon. Kathryn has expertise in partnership coordination, population genetics, ecological restoration and botany. She is passionate about native plant community restoration and seed production.
Kathryn is a founding member and previous board chair of The Understory Initiative. Her role as executive director at The Understory Initiative is to guide program development and foster greater support for herbaceous plant community restoration in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
John Villella
Board Member
John has had a lifelong fascination with nature and has spent the last two decades studying and documenting the biodiversity of the Pacific Northwest as an environmental educator and an ecological consultant specializing in rare species. He is especially interested in plants and their invertebrate pollinators.
John has served on the board of directors for several non-profits including the Northwest Scientific Association and the Northwest Lichenologists. He is a founding member of the Biodiversity Research Collective, a non-profit research institute dedicated to biodiversity studies. John has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers and was recently awarded the Letharia Award by the California Lichen Society for his years of service as Editor of the CALS Bulletin. He also regularly leads natural history related hikes and workshops in southwest Oregon and the broader Pacific Northwest.
Julie Spelletich
Board Member
Julie is passionate about the natural world, particularly plants and the connections and interactions people have with them. She works as a field botanist conducting rare plant and wildlife surveys, plant ecology, native seed collections and propagation in the northwest region.
With a focus on community engagement she is an active member of the Siskiyou Chapter Native Plant Society of Oregon fulfilling multiple roles over many years, committee member of the Urban Forestry Commission for the city of Talent, leads botanical hikes, weed pulling expeditions and enjoys sharing nature experiences with friends.
Sarah Burns
Board member
Sarah Burns is an artist living and working in Southern Oregon. She uses observation-based traditional European oil painting techniques to document and highlight a sense of time and place, through plein air and studio work. Sarah grew up in Southern Oregon and notes changes in the landscape throughout the seasons and the years in her work. Her observation-based practice has led to scientific inquiry and armchair study of clouds, geology, ecology. She finds that scientific exploration often equals artistic inspiration and nurtures her wonder and awe of the natural world.
Sarah works with a variety of groups to connect people with the arts and the outdoors, including Schneider Museum of Art, Vesper Meadow and the Friends of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. She teaches painting and drawing through her Talent, OR studio – Project Space (www.artprojectspace.com) and leads plein air painting classes and meet-ups in Southern Oregon. www.sarahfburns.com
stacy Taeuber
Board Member
Stacy is a recent transplant to the Rogue Valley, lured here by the natural beauty, unique ecosystems, and endless opportunities for exploration. Stacy has worked as an immigration and criminal defense lawyer for twenty-five years. She has lived and worked in Washington, D.C., Miami, Arizona, Wisconsin, NYC, and Minnesota. She now works remotely, and spends her spare time in the great out of doors, learning all she can about the birds, plants, and animals that also call this area home.
Stacy has an M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which is where she caught the bird bug, while doing a ten-month internship with the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. Stacy is passionate about volunteering in any way she can to help restore and preserve our natural areas and to bring people together with each other and the land.