Pandy Upchurch has a bachelor’s degree in wildlife and fisheries science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and a master’s degree in biology from Austin Peay State University. She has been an interpretive naturalist for over 40 years at such places as the Woodlands Nature Center at Land Between the Lakes, Dunbar Cave State Natural Area, the Warner Parks Nature Center, MTSU’s Center for Environmental Education, and the Tennessee Naturalist Program. She was the Middle Tennessee Biodiversity Coordinator, the Instream Flow Coordinator and the Assistant Chief of Biodiversity in her 17 years at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. She also taught biology at Columbia State Community College for two years. She has been conducting Wild Edible classes in Tennessee since 1984. She currently owns Tennessee Healthy Habitats, LLC, a consulting service that helps Tennesseans increase the biodiversity on their land.

This month’s presentation, Tennessee’s Globally Significant Biodiversity, will cover the threats to wildlife diversity in Tennessee—the most biologically diverse inland state—and will discuss the conservation measures that are being taken to protect our state’s biodiversity, which are at great risk.