Profile

• Time Zone

  Pacific

  
  
• Gender

  (not set)

  
  
• Organization

  California State University - Northridge

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I'm fascinated by plants and their interactions. Simple questions still remain unanswered, like why are so many similar plant species able to coexist? Communities with more biodiversity are supposed to be more resilient, but when many similar species live together they might be in competition. In fact, many scientists think competition is the only real interaction in the world of plants- competition within a species can limit the number of individuals in that species, and competition between species can limit the number of species in an area. I wonder if other kinds of interactions, like mutualism, might also be important for the coexistence of similar species, especially since biodiverse communities are more resilient. My plant research looks at these ideas using experimental field studies.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  Do you have advice for students about preparing for a science career?

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

  Anyone can be a scientist. There are only two absolutely essential qualities in a scientist: curiosity and openness. Be curious as you go about your routine. Look around you and think about what you see- on a daily basis. Write down questions you have about the things you experience in your everyday life, and never think your questions are stupid. Even if your question has an answer, generating the question is as important as answering the question. The second key is being open to new ideas. In science, you must always be open to new evidence refuting your idea of how things work. New evidence might mean you were completely wrong, but that's part of the fun in science. Being wrong is actually an opportunity to rework your ideas and figure out what's actually happening.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is tough about being a scientist?

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

  Scientists have to be self-directed. There are plenty of tasks to do- analyzing data, planning new experiments, lab work, writing (believe me, a LOT of writing), communicating with mentors and other collaborators, etc. No one tells you what to do or when to do it. This is a blessing and a curse! I love choosing how and when to work- if I want to take a morning to work on writing and spend the afternoon working with data, that's something I can do. But, sometimes there are lots of tasks that need to get done and it can take tremendous internal motivation to do them all and do them well.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

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

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

  One of the coolest things I've learned about plants is about how they can respond to herbivory. Imagine you are a plant- you can't move too much, but somehow you are able to sense that a meter away another plant in the same species is being chewed by caterpillars or some other insect herbivore. How do you know what's happening to a different plant a meter away? Scientists don't know how, but they do know that some plants can respond to herbivory happening to other plants by producing more chemicals in their leaves to deter herbivores.

  
  
• 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?

  3

  
  

Recent Posts

Table 3 Lea Richardson Nov 30, 2023

Great to hear! Let me know if you have any questions that I could help with, and when you have some explanation of your  hypotheses and results I can give feedback on that as well. Hope you all had a good thanksgiving!

mhsfreemanposfall2023 project 2 Lea Richardson Nov 30, 2023

Great job- I have a two final recommendations that are the kind of feedback I always receive from my mentors when I am working on explaining my result and conclusions. 1) you always want to try to link your results and predictions back to the big…

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Great job- I have a two final recommendations that are the kind of feedback I always receive from my mentors when I am working on explaining my result and conclusions. 1) you always want to try to link your results and predictions back to the big picture. What I mean is to have a statement like: We found that after 24 hours the 0.5 inch plant was darker yellow than the 1 inch plant, this is consistent with our hypothesis that plants that are different sizes will [fill in the blank about what you learned about cellular respiration which is the "big picture" science part]. 2) make sure to have a statement like I suggested for each aspect of the experiment, for example you had dark and light treatments- but from the way you described your conclusion I wasn't exactly sure how the outcomes differed for the plants in dark vs. light treatments and how those outcomes helped you learn more about photosynthesis and respiration (the "big picture" science). But great work! AND I will reiterate that this kind of feedback is something that I also need to work on when I am explaining my results and I have a PhD, so it is just part of working on explaining science!

lhselligposfall2023 project 17 Lea Richardson Nov 30, 2023

Hi everyone hope you all had a good thanksgiving! How is the project coming along?