Profile

• Time Zone

  Mountain

  
  
• Organization

  University of Colorado - Boulder

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I am studying the evolution of the genus Physalis, which contains the important crop tomatillo. In particular, I am investigating interspecific gene flow, pollination ecology, and reproductive isolation with a focus on the domesticated species and their relatives.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  Can you describe your attitude toward science when you were in high school?

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

  In high school, science classes where my favorite classes. I had an Earth Science teacher who told me that I should go into science since I had a mind of it. I didn't really understand what the meant and I was not focused right out of high school so it took me a couple years to find my way into botany.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is best about being a scientist?

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

  The best part of being a scientist, especially a biologist, is getting to explore general knowledge about how the natural worlds work, and traveling to new places.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is a typical day like for you?

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

  It really varies, and I have more of a typical week than a day. My days consist of taking graduate levels classes, journal clubs reading scientific papers, and spending time in the greenhouse.

  
  
• 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

  
  

Recent Posts

Buckwheat Chelsea Pretz Mar 4 at 10:48am

Hi everyone!!

It looks like you are off to a great start! How successful a plant grows is an important to understand for many different reasons (optimizing crop development to understanding what is necessary for plants to survive). It sounds like…

more

Hi everyone!!

It looks like you are off to a great start! How successful a plant grows is an important to understand for many different reasons (optimizing crop development to understanding what is necessary for plants to survive). It sounds like you are thinking about what types of input seeds germinate and have good growth after germination. In your 'explore,' you start out very broad (which can be great), but it seems like your experiment focuses on water and the nutrients the plant can pick up (sugar), but you have more about light. What was your plan for light in this project? With this be your constant? Some other things to explore is, why does sugar make people hyper? If possible, it would be awesome if you could do a gradient of sugar water and make sure you have replicates of each treatment! 

Good luck!

mhsmirandaspring2022 project 5 Chelsea Pretz Mar 29, 2022

Hopefully, your project is wrapping up well!!

fchslashpolspring2022 project 4 Chelsea Pretz Mar 29, 2022

Awesome project! How will you determine what pollen is from what species? You can take a sample and look under a microscope (do you have access to a light compound microscope at 60x?). You could also do a little googling to figure out what the…

more

Awesome project! How will you determine what pollen is from what species? You can take a sample and look under a microscope (do you have access to a light compound microscope at 60x?). You could also do a little googling to figure out what the pollen looks like and if you would be able to determine what species' pollen is most distinct. Are you testing how far the wind will move the pollen? Part of designing a good project is understanding its limitations. A pollinator that flies might be moving the pollen miles.