Kellyn LaCour-Conant is a two-spirit daughter of the Cane River Creole community raised in Houston, TX. As a youth, she served extensively with the Student Conservation Association and AmeriCorps before earning BAs in Biology and Russian from Amherst College and an MS in Marine and Environmental Biology from Nicholls State; she's currently a PhD candidate in Urban Forestry at Southern University in Baton Rouge.
Prior to joining Taproot Earth, Kellyn was the Director of Restoration Programs with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. She's worked with many NGO and governmental agencies, including Baton Roots Community Farm, Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Kellyn was a Sacred Waters Pilgrimage Fellow with the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, and serves on several Boards and Committees serving communities of coastal Louisiana and the Mississippi River watershed. She is also an Ambassador with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Emerging Leader with Interfaith America, and a member of Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, a circle of southeastern Indigenous farmers rematriating land.
In her free time, Kellyn enjoys beach volleyball, horseback riding, fishing, and reading.