Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  US Department of Agriculture

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  At the USDA, I work with a great team at Biotechnology Regulatory Services on regulation of genetically engineered plants. As a teacher, I have investigated how best to engage students in both formal and informal learning lettings, asking what teaching strategies and outreach projects are most effective in inspiring urban people to care about maintaining and increasing urban biodiversity. My recent research centers on urban ecology. I am working with the U.S. Forest Service to determine how the Philadelphia urban forests will respond to the invasion of the emerald ash borer. I am also studying how lichen distributions respond to different urban conditions in the Phildelphia-Camden Urban Matrix. In my dissertation research, I studied how soil lichens influence soil structure, chemistry and biological communities?

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  Frullania eboracensis: It is my favorite plant because barely anyone knows it's a plant! It's an epiphytic liverwort that grows all over the trees of the northeastern US and under a microscope, you can see it's a spectacular ladder of liverwort leaves making delicate traces across the bark.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is the coolest thing you have discovered or learned about plants?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  That a plant-fungual mutualism might have been involved in the plant transition to the land!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What was the first science experiment you ever designed? How did it turn out?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  I was trying to study the state of a lichen community on a polluted mountainside; I thought there is no way I can learn to identify all these lichens, and do so much repetitive data collection, but then I did, and we found out there was a lichen community recovery underway, which was really exciting!

  
  
• Availability

  I am currently available for mentoring, please send me team match invitations

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  1