Resource Database

Title: IPM Invasive Species Coordinator
Unit: Center for Urban Ecology
Country: United States

Jil Swearingen serves as IPM Invasive Species Coordinator for the National Park Service, National Capital Region and is stationed at the Center for Urban Ecology in Washington, DC. She assists the region's parks with pest management issues affecting forests and other natural areas, agricultural crops and cultural resources. Jil's experience with invasive species dates back to 1991 when she established and coordinated the Exotic Plant Working Group for MNCPPC, Montgomery County Parks and continued in 1995 with NPS when she became Chair of the Alien Plant Working Group for the Plant Conservation Alliance. She created the PCA-APWG Weeds Gone Wild website to help educate the public on the problem of invasive plants affecting natural ecosystems through fact sheets and developed "Weed-US", a database of invasive plants of natural areas in the U.S. In 1999, she initiated meetings to establish the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council, now the Mid-Atlantic Invasive Plant Council, a 501(c)(3) organization since 2000. In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Chesapeake Bay Field Office, Jil served as lead author for the book "Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas" first published in 2002 and now in its fourth edition (2010). She collaborates regularly with the University of Georgia Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health on the Invasive Plant Atlas of the U.S. website, the Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System (EDDmapS) for the mid-Atlantic region, the Mid-Atlantic Early Detection Network and other projects.