Pat Duncan Raven lives on a beautiful hillside just west of St. Louis, Missouri, with Peter H. Raven, Chairman of the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration. An avid photographer and journalist, Pat is the garden writer for the Ladue News. She has more than one hundred columns and scientific articles to her credit. Pat’s photos have appeared on PBS, on the National Geographic Voices blog, and been used to promote the Travel Photography Competition of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Trained as a plant scientist, Dr. Raven earned her Ph.D. in horticulture from Ohio State and spent much of her career in the botanical garden world. She was the Executive Director of Mercer Botanical Garden in Houston before marrying Dr. Raven.