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Master astronomer, Dave Hostetter pictured with a powerful telescope!
Dave Hostetter retired in 2020 from a 45-year career in planetariums, including 40 years as Curator of the Planetarium at the Lafayette Science Museum.  He co-curated the Museum’s accessioned collections of meteorites and traditional planetarium equipment.  Dave is a Fellow of the International Planetarium Society and a Past President of the Southeastern Planetarium Association.  Since retirement, he has started the Acadiana Sky Facebook page (suggesting sky events visible from the South Louisiana area) and has developed a companion web site at www.acadianasky.com showing an on-line meteorite exhibit and information for beginners about buying and using telescopes, among other things.

Susan David - Gyotaku fish printing

Susan David is an interdisciplinary visual artist. Her work blends elements of the natural world, psychology, religion, mythology, and the feminine.
She exhibits her work regionally and nationally.  She is a two-time ArtSpark grant recipient, an Individual Artist Stipend administered by the Acadiana Center for the Arts and funded by the Lafayette Economic Development Authority to implement various public art projects.  She obtained her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting from University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2004 and her Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at Vermont College of Fine Arts, in Montpelier, Vermont in January 2016. 
Susan will be giving Gyotaku printmaking demonstrations to assist our attendees in printing their gyotaku prints at Atelier de la Nature on Saturday, April 11, 2026. She will also have prints and T-shirts based on the natural world available for purchase.
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Artist Susan David blends elements of the natural world, psychology, religion, mythology, and the feminine!

Acadiana Native Plant Project with Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, PhD

The Acadiana Native Plant Project is a local non-profit organization with the mission to promote the use of native plants within our landscape. We propagate over 100 species of native wildflowers, grasses, trees and others at our greenhouse in Arnaudville and secondary location at the UL Ecology center. We also have workshops, speakers, and other outreach activities to connect the public with opportunities to improve the ecological function of the land they steward. Phyllis Griffard is an active volunteer with propagation and outreach, and is a retired educator committed to this work.
Dr. Phyllis Baudoin Griffard is a biology educator. Her scholarly work has aimed to make biology meaningful to learners of all ages, especially that in their own backyards! Phyllis is President of the Acadiana Native Plant Project and coordinator of Louisiana Native Plant Society's Louisiana Certified Habitat Program. Phyllis, Pete, and hundreds of species of birds, insects, herps, and mammals live on 7 acres of gold-certified habitat in Sunset, Louisiana.

Education and Outreach and President Acadiana Native Plant Project
Coordinator of LNPS Louisiana Certified Habitat Program for Southwest Louisiana
Program Committee, Acadiana Master Naturalists

Citizen Science with Dr. Bette Kauffman

Dr. Bette J. Kauffman co-founded the Louisiana Master Naturalist – Northeast chapter and and represents the chapter on the statewide Board. Kauffman is a Professor Emerita of Communication at University of Louisiana Monroe and a photographer whose work appears in local, regional and national juried art exhibits. Read her Edge & Essence Phtography Blog. 

​This workshop will introduce a number of online platforms that naturalists can contribute to, then will take a deeper dive into using eBird and iNaturalist. If internet service allows, it will include looking at examples from Kauffman's 76 eBird lists and 6,700 iNat observations. This talk is used by the Northeast Chapter as part of its Basic Field Skills certification workshop. Kauffman is ULM Professor Emerita of Communications and founded the Northeast chapter.
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Oyster Sustainability

​The LO-SPAT project is a Louisiana state-funded applied research project seeking to implement novel approaches and techniques to promote oyster sustainability in the face of ongoing and future environmental challenges, specifically low salinity that occurs with river floods. To this goal, the LO-SPAT project operates a 1,600 gallon recirculating aquaculture system at the UL Lafayette Ecology Center that is the center of the genomic selection method of breeding being developed and used in the project. We also partner with academic, federal, private, and state institutions to produce and deploy oysters with enhanced tolerance to low salinity conditions, build our understanding of co-stressors of low salinity for oysters, and increase monitoring of water quality in oyster-growing regions (see www.lospat.org). Dr. Beth Stauffer (Associate Professor, UL Lafayette) leads the collaborative project, while Ann Fairly Pandelides (Project Manager) is involved in running and managing all aspects and moving parts of LO-SPAT.
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Smiling Herpetologist Rico Rabbits of L.A.R.E.
One of Louisiana's top hands-on field Herpetologists, Rico Rabbits of L.A.R.E, a proven nature guide adept at locating and identifying herpetofauna!

Stephen Barney

Smiling male Entomologist Steven Barney holding a butterfly net, wearing a sunhat and a white t-shirt depicting a beetle.
Entomologist Steven Barney has been devoted to Beetles for 30 years.
Steven has had a love for beetles for his entire life, especially those in the Scarab superfamily. He has been breeding and working with beetles for the past 30 years, does educational outreach with animals and has done insect work for TV and movies. Last year he opened the Scarab Lab; the only permitted exotic beetle breeding facility in the U.S