Saturday, February 28, 2026
8:45 am - 4:45 pm
Maritime conference center
692 maritime boulevard, linthicum heights, md 21090
Review the Conference Agenda before registering, as you’ll be asked to select your desired sessions during registration.
About Our Conference
We have an exciting conference planned for this year, bringing together voices and stories that matter. Our speakers will explore wildlife habitat, climate optimism, the history of our local lands, and the power of raising your voice, all centered on restoring communities and protecting the waterways that connect us. Whether you’re a Watershed Steward, stormwater professional, or just interested in environmental restoration, this year’s conference has something for everyone!
You won’t want to miss this event with:
Keynote by Jaren Hill Lockridge
Networking opportunities with hundreds of attendees, including government officials, business owners, educators, residents, community leaders, and Watershed Stewards!
Vendor hall filled with local businesses, watershed organizations, government agencies, funders, and local nonprofits.
Funders Office Hours: Meet one-on-one with a funder to discuss your next project! Must be registered for the Conference to sign-up!
CEU’s offered: ISA (must sign-in at the session) and CBLP, Master Gardener and Master Naturalist (self-reported).
Silent Auction, Happy Hour and so much more!
Ready to Spring Into Action?
General Admission: $100
High School and College Students: $40
Watershed Stewards, Tree Troopers, Tree Ambassadors, & Board Members will be emailed a promotion code to receive a special discount off general admission.
Scholarships are available for all admission categories - applications accepted during conference registration.
Review the Conference Agenda before registering, as you’ll be asked to select your desired sessions during registration.
Become a Conference Sponsor
Supporting WSA as a Conference Sponsor distinguishes you and your company as a committed partner in environmental restoration and connects you with an engaged group of leaders, professionals, and volunteers.
Spring Into Action Speakers & Sessions
Review the Conference Agenda before registering, as you’ll be asked to select your desired sessions during registration.
Keynote Speaker
Jaren Hill Lockridge
Jaren Hill Lockridge is a mother, strategist, and community leader based in Ward 8, Washington, D.C., sitting at the intersection of environmental justice, public health, and food equity. As Director of Strategic Partnerships at Dreaming Out Loud, she helps lead initiatives like the Marion Barry Avenue Market, expanding access to fresh food, urban agriculture, and community-owned economic opportunities east of the river. She also serves as Chair of the Ward 8 Health Council, guiding collaborative efforts to address the Black maternal health crisis, senior quality of life, economic mobility, and behavioral and mental health.
She is a self-described “tree hugger,” not as a metaphor but as a practice. Time outdoors is where she feels most grounded and most free. Whether working in an urban farm, or teaching her children the names of plants and waterways, she believes that reconnection to nature is essential to both individual and collective healing, especially in our communities that have been systematically denied access to green space, clean water, and environmental decision making.
That belief has shaped much of her work. Through hands-on initiatives like Ward 8 Water Watchers, Jaren helps residents observe and understand the ecosystems around them testing water quality, learning how stormwater flows through their neighborhoods, and seeing how environmental conditions directly affect health, housing, and economic stability. Her approach demystifies environmental science and reframes stewardship as something neighbors already do and deserve to lead.
Jaren’s environmental advocacy is deeply place based. She does not parachute solutions into communities; she cultivates them from the ground up. Her leadership blends political education, environmental literacy, and peer-to-peer teaching, rooted in the idea that people are experts in their own lived environments. Food systems, waterways, and green spaces are not separate from community power; they are expressions of it.
At the core of Jaren’s work is a simple but radical ethic: care for the land, and care for each other. She often returns to the words, ‘If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together’
ALISON ZAK
Alison Zak is the Executive Director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund. She studied human-wildlife conflict, then worked for 6 years in environmental education before founding HBCF. She is also a nonfiction book coach and the author of Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World.
CLAUDIA DONEGAN
Claudia Donegan has worked over 36 years throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed as educator, stream scientist, public policy coordinator, and implementing ecological restoration projects in tidal and nontidal environments. Presently, she serves as the Director of the Center for Habitat Restoration and Conservation in Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources Chesapeake and Coastal Service, spearheading and implementing ecosystem restoration projects throughout the state.
MICHAEL RAUPP
A Professor Emeritus and Extension Specialist at the University of Maryland, Mike is a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America. He has received national and international awards for writing, scholarship, and science communication. Mike has appeared on all major television networks in this county and several abroad and has been featured on National Geographic, Science Channel, BBC, and PBS. He has appeared with media luminaries including Jay Leno, Robin Roberts, Hoda Kotb, and Kojo Nnamdi. His “Bug of the Week” website and YouTube channel reach thousands of viewers weekly in more than 200 countries. His most recent book “26 Things that Bug Me” introduced youngsters to the wonders of insects and natural history while “Managing Insect and Mites on Woody Landscape Plants” is a standard for the arboricultural industry.
ELLE BASSETT
Elle Bassett is the South, West, and Rhode Riverkeeper for Arundel Rivers Federation. As a Riverkeeper, Elle strives to be the voice for the rivers and works to protect, preserve, and restore them. Riverkeepers advocate compliance with environmental laws, respond to citizen complaints, identify problems which affect their identified bodies of water, and devise appropriate remedies to address these problems. Elle has experience in environmental restoration, volunteer coordination, water quality monitoring, oyster restoration, county and state policy, and more.
ERIK MICHELSEN
Erik is a Deputy Director for Anne Arundel County’s Department of Public Works, headings its Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration. He works to facilitate the recovery of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries through supporting robust restoration projects and rigorous scientific monitoring efforts, bolstered by broad stakeholder partnerships.
EVAN MAZUR
Bio & Photo Coming Soon
GABE COHEE
Prior to joining the Resilience Authority in October 2024, Gabe worked at the Department of Natural Resources providing technical and financial resources to communities and governments to address non-point pollution through nature-based and natural solutions. Gabe directed the state’s Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund for over 10 years, leading the investment of more than $500M into local projects that improved water quality, habitat, and climate resilience. In his final year at the department, Gabe served as a liaison to the Chesapeake Bay Program working across the watershed states and District of Columbia to develop goals for continued success in Chesapeake Bay restoration and protection.
JASMINE WILDING
Jasmine Wilding is a licensed professional engineer in Maryland. She currently is a stormwater management engineer with the City of Annapolis and prior was the MS4 program manager for Queen Anne’s County. She has over fifteen years of engineering project management experience. She holds a bachelor’s of science in Environmental Engineering and a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She has experience with the Chesapeake Bay Trust and has applied and managed grants through the FEMA, NFWF, DNR, and the State capital improvement program. She also manages flood mitigation and resiliency projects in Eastport.
JESSE ILIFF
Jesse grew up along the banks of the Severn River, and by high school knew he would devote his professional life to clean water. To that end, Jesse earned his juris doctor with a concentration in environmental law from the University of Maryland School of Law in 2010. After practicing litigation in state and federal court for five years, Jesse took a position as Riverkeeper for the South River, which he held for over six years before coming back home to protect the Severn at SRA. He is married with two children and when he isn’t working for the river, he is playing in it—kayaking, crabbing, swimming, or just sitting and listening to the waves with his family.
JIM FOSTER
Bio & Photo Coming Soon
KARI WURTH
Kari Wurth is a Forest Health Specialist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Forest Service. Kari works across Maryland and beyond to monitor and respond to forest health threats, including insect pests, invasive vegetation, and wildfire.
KATHLEEN LITCHFIELD
Bio & Photo Coming Soon
MARIO HARLEY
Mario Harley is a citizen of the Piscataway Nation, and a member of the Wild Turkey Clan. He is a graduate of the American University in Washington DC with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. Since 1991, Mario has been a lifetime “Sequoyah" member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). Beginning in 2013, Mario has been the lead volunteer instructor for the Charles County Indian Education program for Native American students. In collaboration with the University of Maryland leadership team, Mario served as the Piscataway lead in implementing various Tribal themes and history displays within their Yahentamitsi (Yah-hen-tah-mit-si) Dining Hall. He led a team of Piscataway citizens in developing a curriculum and teaching Piscataway history to their Honors College students at the University of Maryland, College Park campus which was first offered for the Fall 2023 semester.
Mario is currently serving as the Piscataway Tribal representative to the Mallows Bay – Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council. He is also the Piscataway focal point working with Historic St Mary’s City in designing their Indigenous culture and history displays within their new Visitor Center.
MAX FERLAUTO
Max was raised in the DMV where he developed a fascination with urban ecology. Then he went to Juniata College and majored in Plant Ecology. He then received a PhD in Entomology from the University of Maryland. He now works as the State Entomologist for the MD Natural Heritage Program where he studies and conserves rare insects.
MIKE ROSSBERG
Bio & Photo Coming Soon
MIKE TIDWELL
Mike Tidwell is a journalist, author, and climate activist living in Takoma Park, MD. His most recent book is an exploration of global warming’s impact in his own front yard, called The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A story of Climate and Hope on One American Street (St. Martin’s Press, March 2025). Publishers Weekly magazine named the book one of the best nonfiction books of 2025. A passionate conservationist, he founded the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in 2002, where he has led local and national campaigns for clean energy. He lives on Willow Avenue in Takoma Park, MD with his wife Beth and their cat Macy Gray.
PAUL RICKETT
Bio & Photo Coming Soon
RALINDA WIMBUSH
Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, and now based in South Baltimore, Ralinda, the Founder of Women of Color Outdoors (WOCO) Hike & Sound Healing is profoundly passionate about eco-education, nature adventures, and effecting visible change within communities. She is dedicated to highlighting the environmental challenges faced by underserved and under-resourced populations. Her primary focus is on restoring the symbiotic relationship between humans and their environment by fostering trust, engagement, and awareness among community members and stakeholders through nature based excursions and unique outdoor experiences that promote physical and spiritual wellbeing.
SAM HOADLEY
Sam Hoadley is the Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt. Cuba Center where he evaluates native plant species, old and new cultivars, and hybrids in the Trial Garden. Sam earned his degree in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture from the University of Vermont.