Profile

• Time Zone

  Central

  
  
• Organization

  Missouri Botanical Garden

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  My research interests are interactions between plants and their associated microbe symbionts and pathogens. Plant associated microbial communities are structured by the combination of two modes of transmission, vertical (phylogenetically inherited) and horizontal (environmental acquired). Using the study system Vitis and grafting, the process of joining the shoot (scion) of one plant to the root system (rootstock) of another be they different genotypes or species, I want to tease apart how each of these modes of transmission contributes to the microbiome as a whole. My career aspirations are to contribute to our understanding of the holobiont (the host plus their associated microbes) and hologenome (the collective genome of the host and associates) concepts in plants.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  When and why did you decide to go into a science career?

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

  I had always been a person who is curious about how things work, as a kid I would always take things apart to see how they worked and fit together. This lead me to wonder how things in nature work as well, the plant probably didn’t appreciated it but I loved to try to take apart flowers to how the different floral parts went together. Ultimately I decided to go into a science career after an amazing chemistry class I took in community college. As part of the course students are required to design their own small research project, conduct the experiment and present to the class. For my research project I choose to tissue culture Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula), I was able to take cuttings from my personal plants and try to make them root. This involved preparing a media (agar gel) for the cuttings to grow on; sterilization of the containers, plant cuttings, and tools. Although things did not go exactly as I would have hoped, only ~5 out of 40 cuttings took root, I had a great time conducting my own research project. After it all my teacher was impressed with the project, he decide to include it in the course syllabus as an experiment the entire class would conduct with African Violets.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is best about being a scientist?

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

  The best thing for me about being a scientist is the ability to work on thing that you care about and are interested in. I currently work in a conservation genetics lab, where most of the species we work with are rare or endangered. With my work I get the benefit of knowing that my research will be used by conservation agency's, other scientists, and the government to help in the protection and restoration of the species we work with. Other things that are great about being a botanist is the cool places that I get to visit to collect plants and material; from a zoo in Texas collecting bat droppings, to rural Alabama looking for a plant species that hadn’t been collected since the 1950’s. There is never a dull day when you are a scientist!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

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

  This is a very hard question for me to answer since I like to grow many different plants and am constantly adding to my collection. My favorite group of plants would have to be carnivorous plants, although they are from multiple genera they each have unique ways to capture prey for added nutrients. Most carnivorous plants grow in very nutrient poor places such that it is beneficial to be carnivorous. I currently grow many species of sundews (Drosera) and butterworts (Pinguicula). It is amazing to see the different adaptations to catch prey, whether it is snap traps or sticky pads, each of these are getting at the same goal, i.e. living in habitat in which to survive seek alternative means of gaining nutrients.

  
  
• Availability

  I am NOT available, please temporarily remove me from the available mentor list

  
  
• In addition to English, I am comfortable communicating with students in the following languages:

  (not set)

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

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

Plant fertility Joel Swift Apr 18, 2017

I will gladly review your poster. Send it along once you are ready.

Plant fertility Joel Swift Apr 10, 2017

Hello group, How are things going? Are the plants beginning to set seed?

Plant fertility Joel Swift Mar 28, 2017

| We do not know when the flowers appeared because of spring break, but they have appeared.

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| Becuase we were on spring break we were not able to see when the flowers sprouted, however now we do have our first flowers on all plants

It…

more

| We do not know when the flowers appeared because of spring break, but they have appeared.

&

| Becuase we were on spring break we were not able to see when the flowers sprouted, however now we do have our first flowers on all plants

It is unfortunate that the plants picked a time to flower when you were away. Although this does show that the treatments are not radically different as they all produced flowered at roughly the same time. Since none were flowering before you left and all are flowering now.