Jack Monsted

Jack's passion is finding ways humans can work to strengthen damaged ecosystems through ecological gardening and restoration using native plants. He has served as the assistant curator for the native plant trail since 2019. He manages most aspects of the native plant trail area, including the woodland, wetland, and 30 acre meadow. He also leads projects related to invasive plant removal and ecological restoration throughout Blandy's 700+ acres.  

Outside Blandy, he serves as botany chair on the board of the Shenandoah chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society, and is on the technical advisory board of non-profit Sustainability Matters, where he helps to install native meadows on sites ranging from landfills to the Jim Barnett park in Winchester. 

Jack received his undergraduate degree in environmental geography from The Ohio State University in 2013 and a Master’s degree in Plant Biology from Ohio University in 2018, where he conducted his thesis research on forest plant community dynamics.

Publications:

Monsted, J., & Matlack, G. R. (2023). Human ecology of forest in an extraction-shaped landscape: Economic and demographic drivers of land use change in the Ohio Valley over 220 years. Regional Environmental Change, 23(3), 101.

Monsted, J., & Matlack, G. R. (2021). Shaping the second-growth forest: fine-scale land use change in the Ohio Valley over 120 years. Landscape Ecology, 36(12), 3507-3521.