Webmaster
DeBarros, Nelson (Active)
Fairfax County Park Authority
Plant Ecology/Flora of the Mid-Atlantic
Nelson DeBarros was born in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1983. The child of Portuguese immigrants, he developed an early interest in plants while spending time in his grandfather’s extensive quintal (backyard garden), where grapevines, fruit trees, and row crops replaced conventional suburban turf.
Nelson received his initial formal training in botany and ecology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, earning a B.S. in Biology in 2005. He later pursued graduate studies at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, where he studied under Dr. David Mortensen in the Department of Agriculture and the Interdisciplinary Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. His research focused on ecosystem services and plant–insect interactions, culminating in a master’s thesis titled Floral Resource Provisioning for Bees in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic Region. He earned his M.S. in Ecology in 2010.
From 2011 to 2017, Nelson served as staff botanist for the Connecticut Natural Diversity Data Base. In this role, he conducted environmental reviews, surveyed for state- and federally listed plant species, and planned mitigation and ecological restoration projects. During this period, he also served on the Regional Advisory Council of The Native Plant Trust (formerly the New England Wildflower Society) and as a director-at-large of the Connecticut Botanical Society.
Since December 2018, Nelson has served as a Vegetation Ecologist with the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia. There, he has mapped natural communities across more than 2,000 acres of parkland and documented over 80 new occurrences or sub-occurrences of plant taxa ranked S1–S3 in Virginia. His work has also resulted in 14 county records for Fairfax County and several State records for Virginia.
Nelson received his initial formal training in botany and ecology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, earning a B.S. in Biology in 2005. He later pursued graduate studies at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, where he studied under Dr. David Mortensen in the Department of Agriculture and the Interdisciplinary Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. His research focused on ecosystem services and plant–insect interactions, culminating in a master’s thesis titled Floral Resource Provisioning for Bees in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic Region. He earned his M.S. in Ecology in 2010.
From 2011 to 2017, Nelson served as staff botanist for the Connecticut Natural Diversity Data Base. In this role, he conducted environmental reviews, surveyed for state- and federally listed plant species, and planned mitigation and ecological restoration projects. During this period, he also served on the Regional Advisory Council of The Native Plant Trust (formerly the New England Wildflower Society) and as a director-at-large of the Connecticut Botanical Society.
Since December 2018, Nelson has served as a Vegetation Ecologist with the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia. There, he has mapped natural communities across more than 2,000 acres of parkland and documented over 80 new occurrences or sub-occurrences of plant taxa ranked S1–S3 in Virginia. His work has also resulted in 14 county records for Fairfax County and several State records for Virginia.