Meet Our Team

Wendy Holman was born and raised in rural eastern Canada and has always had a love for all things wild, especially reptiles and amphibians. She has a strong background in both environmental and traditional education and has taught middle school science in Alaska and Lawrence. She moved to Lawrence in 2017 with her partner Luke and has had a growing passion for prairies ever since. Wendy works as the Education Program Coordinator at the KU Field Station, where she is developing an environmental education program that will serve Lawrence and surrounding communities. She is excited to support the work of Native Lands as they help connect people to their environment.

Emily Ryan (she/her) formed her initial perspectives of the world somewhere between the branches of sugar maple trees in eastern Ohio. The lakes northern Ohio; meadows of Massachusetts; woods of western Pennsylvania, and prairies of Kansas have all made formative contributions to her bonds with place since then.

In Lawrence, she is the Director of The Commons at KU where she works with faculty, staff, and students at KU to identify areas of research for interdisciplinary inquiry and engagement; address global and local challenges through collaboration; and create opportunities for meeting people across specializations. She works with individuals to create unique formats for programs to ensure that the goals can be reached through the content and structure.

Emily is an avid community builder—across species and systems. She is passionate about food access, environmental advocacy, and education. She is a grateful steward of the land, always seeking to grow and learn with others.

Sarah Morse is a born-and-raised Kansan who is excited to have the opportunity to promote the conservation and restoration of Kansas' native ecosystems with Native Lands. Growing up, Sarah was encouraged to appreciate the outdoors. Early in her career, she learned about ways to use her legal training to advocate for the places she loved to explore. Now, she is thrilled to volunteer her time with organizations such as Native Lands that work to share the importance, diversity, and beauty of Kansas with others.  Sarah lives in Topeka with her husband, daughters, and black lab.

Born and raised near the Great Lakes, Apolonia is now fully rooted in the prairies of Kansas, where she earned degrees at KU in Ecology and Environmental Studies. Apolonia has worked and volunteered for myriad nonprofits advancing environmental education, land conservation, and food sovereignty. She works as a Project Associate at Bark Media in Lawrence.

Apolonia is an avid birder, reader, and loves ripping out honeysuckle wiht a passion.

Ted is a KU graduate (BS Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) and later received a MS from the University of Central Missouri, with his research emphasis on integrated management techniques for difficult riparian invaders such as Reed Canarygrass. After finishing out his MS degree, Ted promptly changed careers and began working full time for KU Medical Center in 2016. Ted calibrates, optimizes and reprograms the campus energy management and building automation systems. Recent optimization and upgrade projects have resulted in a 30% reduction in energy consumption campus-wide. Ted also volunteers regularly with Grassland Heritage Foundation and helps Native Lands with certain types of management work such as prescribed burns. Ted lives in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, MO, and owns rural property in Jefferson County, KS (including a prairie reconstruction site).

Andie is a fifth generation Kansan with a master's degree in French Literature from the University of Kansas. With over ten years of experience in translation, education and project management, she is passionate about cross-cultural communication and likes to help people (and plants and animals!) of all walks of life feel heard. After living in Paris, San Francisco and Los Angeles for most of the last two decades, she returned home to Kansas in 2021 and has been working to restore a remnant prairie at her home in her free time. She also volunteers with Save the Wakarusa River Valley and the Kansas Rural Center and believes connecting with, protecting and restoring our remnant natural communities is the key to ensuring we can survive and thrive into the future!

Jacob is an ecologist with a passion for sharing the story of native ecosystems. He grew up on 10 acres in rural south-central Kansas where he first learned to distinguish big and little bluestem. Jacob holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology from Goshen (IN) College and a Master’s degree in Biology from Syracuse (NY) University. He works for The Nature Conservancy on global conservation projects and is thrilled to support Native Lands’ work closer to home. He lives in Lawrence and in his spare time documents everything he can on iNaturalist.