Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  Miami University - Hamilton

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I study plant-insect interactions, specifically how plants attract their pollinators and deter their herbivores (the insects that eat them). I also study how plant defense affects insect growth and behavior. I am especially interested in insects that are both beneficial and detrimental to the same plant at different insect life stages, such as moths that are pollinators at the adult stage but herbivores at the larval stage.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

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

  I love the Titan arum, Amorphophallus titanum, because of its large, impressive, and smelly flower! It has a very distinct leaf, only flowers every few years, and smells like a rotting corpse to attract its beetle and fly pollinators. It even heats up to make the scent stronger. What's not to love?

  
  
• Profile Question 2

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

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

  In 7th grade, our class did an experiment with bananas, fruit flies, and a spider and wrote a daily lab notebook of what we observed for a few weeks. It turned into chaos and at some point our spider escaped into the building, the fly population got out of control, and the banana fully rotted. But the fact that our science teacher set us loose to do the experiment was so fun and I still have that lab notebook.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is a typical day like for you?

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

  I am a new tenure-track faculty member and director of a plant conservatory at my university. A typical day for me involves teaching 1-2 undergraduate courses on environmental biology or plants, replying to student emails and grading, prepping lectures, doing programming at the conservatory, collaborating with local organizations to do outreach, writing scientific talks, taking care of my insect colonies, and setting up my lab space.

  
  
• Help represent the outreach efforts of your societies. Please click all those organizations you are a member of:

  (not set)

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

  1

  
  

Recent Posts

melhswudtkeposfall2023 project 6 Deidra Jacobsen Nov 3, 2023

Fun! It sounds like you are learning about how gas flow in and out of a leaf can affect whether the leaf floats or not. I saw some comments mentioning that plants need CO2–do you think it is the CO2 that causes the leaf to float or another gas…

more

Fun! It sounds like you are learning about how gas flow in and out of a leaf can affect whether the leaf floats or not. I saw some comments mentioning that plants need CO2–do you think it is the CO2 that causes the leaf to float or another gas associated with the reaction? like the idea of manipulating temperature too—do you have any predictions about how temperature and light might interact?

melhswudtkeposfall2023 project 6 Deidra Jacobsen Oct 27, 2023

It sounds like you are doing some interesting projects and I look forward to seeing more of your predictions and results written up so I can provide feedback. In the meantime, please feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

-Dr Jacobsen

melhswudtkeposfall2023 project 6 Deidra Jacobsen Oct 26, 2023

Hi everyone,

I am a new assistant professor at Miami University this fall and am director of The Conservatory on the Hamilton Regional campus, where we have a large collection of plants from all over the world for teaching, research, and…

more

Hi everyone,

I am a new assistant professor at Miami University this fall and am director of The Conservatory on the Hamilton Regional campus, where we have a large collection of plants from all over the world for teaching, research, and outreach. I study plant-insect interactions and am teaching plant and environmental biology courses.