Mila Pruiett

Ecologist

Mila is a riparian ecologist based in our Hood River office. She loves plants. It’s not uncommon for her to carry a pocket magnifier just in case she happens upon an intriguing plant. This curious enthusiasm has permeated her career, from data scientist at Virga Labs where she worked on environmental policy, focusing on water systems and ecosystem health in the Colorado River Basin, to her research at Lewis & Clark College where she studied conifer seedling dynamics in urban vs rural parks.

As a member of Team Plant at Inter-Fluve (yes, we really have one of those), her primary responsibility is to develop planting plans for restoration projects. Each plan considers what plants are currently growing on site, what plants a client might be interested in planting, aesthetics, cost, and using quantitative data like the height above water, and more. “I like working with clients to know what’s important to them,” say Mila. With a background in programming, Mila is both capable and enthusiastic to leverage technology to improve the process of developing planting plans. For example, she recently created an app that provides real time data on a reach of the Kootenai River for estimating river height using real-time gage data. She’s working on planting plans for several projects including Kellogg Creek dam removal in Portland, Oregon; and the Lower Los Angeles River Restoration and Access Planning Project, which aims to restore natural function, enhance community access, and reintroduce habitat to a highly urbanized river corridor.