Southeastern Native Seed team
Kristin Hopkins, M.S., Native Seed Program Director
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Kristin Hopkins serves as SGI’s Native Seed Program Director. Based out of SGI’s headquarters in Clarksville, Kristin and the seed team serve as the lead coordinators for the Seeds of Success Southeast program in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and Fish & Wildlife Service. Before joining SGI, Kristin was the Natural Resource Manager for the City of Murfreesboro’s Parks Department. In that capacity, she led the Natural Resource team in managing habitat in Parks’ natural areas, working with community volunteers, and developing youth-based learning opportunities for careers in designing resilient landscapes. Her passion for native plants led her to develop the Murfreesboro Indigenous Plant Project, a program that seeks to provide access to appropriate native plant materials for the community. Kristin also serves as Board Chair of the Tennessee Naturalist Program, a state-wide adult natural history course with 13 chapters across the state.
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Gus Rasich, Native Seed Program Collections Manager
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Gus is SGI’s Native Seed Program Collections Manager. Gus began as SGI’s Seed Technician in 2023. His interest in native seeds started when he began volunteering for SGI in August, 2022. Gus attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where he studied scientific illustration before entering a year of AmeriCorps service as an Environmental Educator. When he moved to Tennessee, he was introduced to SGI's work and is excited to have the opportunity to participate in grassland restoration efforts.
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Email: gus.rasich@segrasslands.org
Ashton Crowe, Seed Collection Technician
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Ashton is a Seed Collection Technician at SGI. She is originally from Kentucky and is a Murray State University alumna with a B.S. in Horticulture. During her first year of employment at the Nashville Zoo she primarily had her hands in the dirt at the historical farm, the Zoo's largest pollinator and native gardens. While awaiting her primary goal of managing the Zoo's two greenhouses, her passion for native species took root and flourished, outcompeting her love for greenhouse cultivation. As she began to witness how much habitat loss and lack of biodiversity was all around her, she was determined to set herself on a path of restoration and to return into the field. She is now a part of SGI to help propagate her love for natives to those around her, in her community, and beyond into the southeast through the collection of seeds.
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Jackie Chistolini, Seed Collection GIS Specialist
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Jackie Chistolini is a recent graduate of Colby College, where she studied Statistics and Environmental Studies. She’s passionate about using data to support conservation efforts through data analysis, visualization and mapping. Jackie has worked with several federal agencies, including the USGS and USFS, on projects ranging from seabird population monitoring to wildland fire data management. She enjoys building interactive tools and maps that make complex data accessible, and her work has been published in scientific journals and public-facing dashboards. In her free time she enjoys hiking and experimenting with new recipes.
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