Board of Directors
Leah Darst - President
Owner of Nature Enthusiations LLC and Naturalist/Educator with the Monarch Joint Venture, Minnesota Zoo, Wood Lake Nature Center, and other organizations. Loves creating biofacts and teaching tools (like dragonflies in resin) and repurposing/reducing waste whenever she can.
Dave Doyle - Vice President
Retired Principal Reliability Technician at Medtronics Inc. Volunteer at Tamarack Nature Center. Into Odonata photography for 12+ years.
Cathy Perkins - Treasurer
Works for HealthPartners in the Patient Accounting department. Attended Rio Grande College (OH) in Recreation. Her hobby is photography with an emphasis on shooting macro “odes”. Cathy is also the editor of the MDS newsletter.
Michael Moen - Secretary
Minnesota Master Naturalist, and long time volunteer for Three Rivers Parks. Currently working as a Systems Engineer in industry, and have a BSME from the University of Minnesota.
Emily Schilling
Associate Director of the University of Minnesota's Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories. Freshwater ecologist and lover of all things aquatic.
Katherine Dickerson
University of Wisconsin: Stevens Point Graduate with a major in Wildlife Ecology; Research and Management. Currently a seasonal with Three Rivers Park District. Lifelong passion for learning and exploring the outdoors.
Kurt Mead
Kurt Mead is currently the Interpretive Naturalist at Tettegouche State Park. He is the author of the field guide, “Dragonflies of the North Woods” and was the lead of the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project from 2005-2012. Kurt has surveyed dragonflies and damselflies in 67 of Minnesota’s 87 counties.
Clinton Dexter-Nienhaus
is the Head Naturalist for the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog. His interests range far and wide, and like many naturalists, loves anything and everything about the natural world. Specific interests include conservation of rare and endangered species, prairie and bog ecosystems, odonates, orthoptera, moths, spiders, lichens, mosses, fish, amphibians and reptiles.... the list goes on!
Michael Hurben
Michael Hurben earned his PhD in Physics at Colorado State University in 1996. He and his wife Claire Strohmeyer have been birding the world together for 32 years, and with her help he has accumulated a life list of over 5,000 species despite being legally blind. He is the author of The Physics of Birds and Birding (2025, Pelagic Publishing) and blogs at legallyblindbirding.net.
Claire Strohmeyer
Claire Strohmeyer earned her MS in Wildlife Biology from the University of Idaho in 1992. Her early career involved studies of elk and pronghorn. Now she studies humans and works in the medical device industry. Her passions include birds, insects and native plant gardening. She and her husband Michael Hurben live in Bloomington.
Jeff Fischer
Master Naturalist, photographer and dragonfly enthusiast