Sarah Gardner

Sarah Gardner is a pollination ecologist and native bee taxonomist based out of Pendleton, Oregon, where she has dedicated herself to educating communities throughout the Pacific Northwest (PNW) about native pollinators and the plants that support them. Sarah graduated with her M.S. from Utah State University in 2012 with an emphasis in Pollination Ecology, having studied the effects of oil and gas development on rare plants and their respective pollinator communities. While at Utah State, she also assisted with research on the use of managed native bees for pollination services in alfalfa fields and apple orchards. Her studies cultivated a deep interest in plant-pollinator interactions, which led her to establish a consulting business that allowed her to continue monitoring pollinators and conduct work across the western United States after graduating. One of Sarah’s favorite consultation projects gave her the opportunity to work with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to identify pollinator associations for culturally important food plants. Her passion for pollinators, plants, and sustainable agriculture brought Sarah to Pollinator Partnership (P2), where she is thrilled to be serving as P2’s Western Region Partner Biologist. In this role, she is providing pollinator-related technical, educational, and outreach support to producers throughout the West as well as to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service staff and partners, with the goal of helping producers across the region with establishing pollinator friendly habitat by providing Farm Bill application and conservation planning support. After hours you can find Sarah boating one of the many rivers in the PNW with her husband and dogs, skiing the beautiful slopes of the Elkhorn mountains, or attempting to hunt for mushrooms and elk.