Missouri Prairie Foundation Staff

Clifford Barratt

Assistant Prairie Steward

Clifford, of Springfield, Missouri, assists MPF Director of Prairie Management Jerod Huebner with prairie stewardship activities. Barratt recently graduated from Missouri State University with a degree in economics with an emphasis on natural resources and sustainability. He has worked with the Springfield-Greene County Park Board for two years, designing and maintaining landscapes at dozens of local parks. “What excites me the most about working for MPF,” said Barratt, “is being surrounded by an incredibly dense and diverse prairie ecosystem and having the opportunity to dive in headfirst. I enjoy learning about the various plant and animal species that call the prairie home.”

Carol Davit

Executive Director

Executive Director Carol Davit works with the Missouri Prairie Foundation (MPF) board of directors and committees and oversees all operations of MPF – including fundraising, strategic planning, communications, advocacy, the Grow Native! program, and administration, and has edited the Missouri Prairie Journal since 1996.

Davit has worked for more than 25 years in the conservation and environmental fields in communications, development, administration, and leadership capacities. She has worked for private, nonprofit conservation groups and at the municipal and state government levels. She has been the editor of field guides and written on a wide variety of natural history and conservation topics for the Missouri Prairie Journal, the Missouri Conservationist, and other publications. Davit has B.A. and M.A. degrees in Interdisciplinary Studies. She is the recipient of the Erna Eisendrath Memorial Education Award and the Plant Stewardship Award from the Missouri Native Plant Society, and in 2023, was named Conservationist of the Year by the Conservation Federation of Missouri.

“I consider myself fortunate to help conserve some of the most biologically rich habitat on earth,” Davit says, “and to work with the many people in the MPF and Grow Native! community who are so passionate about prairie conservation and native plants.” Carol and her husband and son are Stream Team #3631. (Photo credit: Travis Duncan)

In addition to serving as the Executive Director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation and the Grow Native! program, Davit also serves in the following conservation leadership capacities for statewide groups:

• Chair, Missouri Invasive Plant Council (administered by MPF and its Grow Native! program)
• Chair, Prairies and Grasslands Resource Committee of the Conservation Federation of Missouri
• Member, Missouri Land Trust Coalition Steering Committee
• Member, Missourians for Monarchs Steering Committee

Davit speaks to many groups on the importance of prairie conservation and the many benefits of native plants, and has spoken at national conferences, including:
Opening Keynote, Oct. 2015, America’s Grasslands Conference, Fort Collins, CO
Opening Keynote, June 2019, North American Prairie Conference, Houston, TX

Watch Davit’s TEDx Gateway Arch presentation, February 2015: Why Prairie Matters: New Relevancies of a Vanishing Landscape

Listen to Davit’s interview with the Nature Revisited Podcast, January 2021: The American Prairie 

Lilly Germeroth

Conservation Program Associate

Lilly supports MPF through administration of specific grant projects, site stewardship, and assistance with educational and outreach activities.

Lilly grew up in the woods of the Ozarks, drawn from a young age to the complexity and constant change of the natural world. She followed this interest with study at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. Here, she had rich research experiences, ranging from surveying ants in the rainforests of Borneo to first encountering the botanical diversity of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.

Lilly followed this research momentum and received a M.S. in Ecology from Pennsylvania State University where she studied the insect community harbored on milkweeds in backyard gardens, with a particular eye to the monarch butterfly.

“It is an honor to contribute to the protection of these rich and precious ecosystems,” Lilly said, “I am excited to work with the community of passionate conservationists in Missouri, and to welcome even more people into a deeper appreciation of the natural world.”

Emily Gustafson

Operations COORDINATOR

As Operations Coordinator, Emily Gustafson provides administrative and outreach support to carry out the mission of MPF and its Grow Native! program. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and her love for conservation and the outdoors started with exploring her neighborhood’s state natural area in Portland and spending summers on the rocky shores of Hood Canal in Washington State. Emily studied political science at Stanford University and went on to graduate study in the same subject at Harvard University. She worked in higher education, including teaching public administration at the University of Missouri, before transitioning to political consulting. Emily currently serves on the City of Columbia’s Climate and Environment Commission and is a Missouri Master Gardener. In addition to being passionate about native plants and the communities of life they support, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and volunteering.

Jerod Huebner

Director of Prairie Management

MPF’s Director of Prairie Management Jerod Huebner oversees prairie management planning and execution including invasive species control, prescribed fire, and all other aspects of the stewardship of MPF’s prairies. Huebner also administers prairie stewardship grants and participates in prairie outreach and education activities.

Huebner earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010. While in college, Huebner worked at MPF’s and the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Prairie Fork Conservation and Expansion Areas in Callaway County on a variety of prairie reconstruction activities. After graduating, Huebner worked as a wildlife biologist at the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area in St. Charles. Among his duties in that position were managing 18,000 acres of high public use conservation areas in the St. Louis region, preparing management plans, supervising staff, grant writing, and numerous outreach activities. He holds Level 3 Fire Burn Boss Certification and has conducted numerous wildlife population surveys.

Originally from Monett, MO, Huebner is pleased to have moved back to southwestern Missouri. He and his wife live in the Joplin, MO area, his home base for carrying out MPF prairie management.

“I look forward to helping protect Missouri’s prairies for many years to come,” Huebner says, “I started my career working on prairies and consider it a real blessing to be able to spend nearly every day at work on a prairie.” In his spare time, Jerod is an avid hunter and angler and enjoys spending time outside with his wife, son, and daughter.

Jerod was named Wildlife Conservationist of the Year by the Conservation Federation of Missouri on March 6, 2020. Read more about Jerod’s work in this Joplin Globe article. 

Amanda Lands Ramrup

Event & Communication Coordinator

Amanda supports MPF events and communications initiatives from her home base in the St. Louis region. Hailing from the Illinois metro-east area, she earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Science from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2014, and a Master’s of Social Work from University of Missouri St. Louis in 2020. She offers a diverse background in civic engagement, education, and philanthropy, and is excited to join the team and bring her talents to MPF and its members.

Amanda’s values are deeply rooted in the belief that we have a responsibility to care for the Earth and its inhabitants. Driven by her care for both the environment and humanity, she is excited about supporting those who seek to connect with Missouri’s natural spaces and to steward some of their own.

She believes this sentiment is best summarized by botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, “This is our work, to discover what we can give.”

Erika Van Vranken

Special Projects Coordinator

Erika was raised in a central Missouri family that liked to garden and fish. She became enamored with birds at an early age, birding throughout her youth, and, while at the University of Missouri-Columbia, participated as a research assistant with the Forest Interior Birds study of the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project. Her main academic pursuit at MU was plant science, where she received her B.S. in 1999. After working for several years with the Plant Protection and Quarantine program of USDA, Erika returned to MU and earned an M.S. in Library Science. She has nearly 15 years of experience working in research libraries, including a decade at Missouri’s largest newspaper repository. Erika also has experience working at a lavender farm, a horticultural nursery, and a plant pathology research lab. She is a Missouri Stream Team member and enjoys reading, especially natural history and poetry, hiking Missouri’s trails, and sightseeing by bicycle.

Erika is working on various MPF and Grow Native! initiatives, including MPF’s Cemetery Prairie Protection Working Group, coordinating  scientific research carried out on MPF prairies, the Grow Native! Certification Program, Native Gardens of Excellence, and the Native Plant Database.

“I have a deep and abiding love for Missouri’s landscapes including its prairies,” said Erika. “With grasslands imperiled here and worldwide, research, advocacy, and preservation are essential to understanding the benefits of these ecosystems and ensuring that they persist into the future. I’m excited to contribute to these important functions by working on projects for MPF and its Grow Native! program.”