Profile

• Time Zone

  (GMT -10) Hawaii

  
  
• Organization

  Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit (UHM)

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I am interested in studies of plant diversity and conservation, particularly those that emphasize the importance of plant taxonomy. In recent years I've become very interested in looking at patterns of diversity over broad geographic scales, particularly alien plants. I'm developing skills in the growing field of biodiversity informatics and, being a huge proponent of herbaria, I'd like to apply these skills to digitized herbaria data to unlock valuable insights that have accumulated over the past hundreds of years.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is a typical day like for you?

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

  A typical day for me is surveying the island of Kauai, Hawaii for alien plants that are just starting to establish on the island. I prepare specimens of plants that I can't identify right away and take them to an herbarium, where they are identified, mounted, digitized and stored for as long as possible. I then make recommendations for removal of invasive plant species based on their potential environmental impacts and the feasibility for island-wide eradication

  
  
• Profile Question 2

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

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

  I grew up in a small town of about 1500 people and the nearest city (of 40,000 people) was over an hour away; there weren't any scientists in my town aside from medical practitioners. I always felt that my interests were far different than most people in my class, and while I loved studying biology and chemistry, but I didn't really know what a scientist was. When I was 17 years old, I received the greatest experience of my teen years: a summer internship from the WISEST program (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science & Technology) to assist a graduate student on a study of fish population biology. After that, I was hooked. I knew that I was destined for a career in science and did everything I could to make it happen.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

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

  My favorite plant (today, at least) is Maxillaria tenuifolia - the coconut pie orchid. I first met this tropical orchid in the dingy hallway of a BioScience building where it hung, flowering lavishly in a pot, in the middle of winter in Canada. I couldn't get over its fragrance! It smells EXACTLY like a coconut cream pie. After seeing it, I promptly ate a slice of coconut cream pie and bought a specimen for my own collection. It didn't start flowering until I moved to Hawaii 3 years ago, where it now flowers every year just after my birthday.

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

  2