John McLean (Vice Chair) has a life-long passion for the Sonoran desert, and has spent many years exploring the bounty and diversity of this habitat on both sides of the border. Trained as a mathematician, John enjoyed a thirty-five year career developing high-resolution remote sensing systems. He has held a variety of executive and board positions for both corporate and non-profit organizations. John is currently raising various heirloom crops on the banks of Sabino Creek.  

Noah Schlager (Conservation Program Manager) has worked for several years on deconstructing the colonial legacies which have historically excluded Indigenous people from participating in western conservation, and to see spaces opened up for Indigenous people to have the agency and discretion to practice and share (or not share) our Indigenous knowledges around caring for plants and the land. In his capacity at NS/S, Noah is working to integrate the conservation of the collection’s seeds with the support and development of Native American farmers and their communities. Through his mother, Donna Wiggins, he is Mvskoke-Creek and Florida Catawba/Cheraw— mixed with Carolina Indian, West African, and European Settler heritage. Through his father, Dan Schlager, he is Jewish, his family settling in Colorado as refugees of the Eastern European pogroms. Noah’s maternal grandmother, Mama Nell Wiggins, was the one who first taught him to garden, forage, and cook foods that have been in his family since time immemorial. Out of the passion she and other elders have planted in him, he works to support his and other communities’ Indigenous foodways and relationships to the land. Noah received his Masters of Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is grateful to be working on the lands of the Tohono O’odham and Yaqui, and takes seriously the responsibility to care for the plant relatives of Indigenous nations and communities across the greater Southwest. 

Andrea Carter (Outreach Agronomist) serves as a link between the NSS seed bank and small-scale farmers across the Southwest.  She graduated with honors from Cornell University where she became passionate about reviving traditional agriculture through her mentorship within the American Indian Program.  Having received her PhD in Plant Science from the University of Arizona, Andrea’s research experience with drought-adapted crops has prepared her to meaningfully contribute to the Native Seeds’ mission to conserve and promote arid-adapted crop diversity and sustainable farming.  She was a recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Indigenous Graduate Scholarship from the UA.

Her doctoral program included three years of field trials exploring the physiology of drought tolerance in barley. This work involved elucidation of key adaptive traits for integration into future breeding programs for drought adapted and low-input crops.  Additional research carried out included the identification of root-traits associated with drought and heavy metal tolerance at early stages of plant development for potential use as a simple and inexpensive plant screening tool. 

Andrea’s agronomic knowledge was further enhanced through her work with low-input and water conserving production methods in Cuba, China, and North Africa as well as urban farming in Washington D.C. As a member of the Powhatan Renape Nation she values cross-cultural approaches to problem solving that can contribute to enhanced seed-saving capacity and food security in Native communities by drawing on the existing agricultural knowledge base of these communities.