Student Research Grant Recipients 2023

Aidan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities studying the evolutionary ecology of whole genome duplication in Clarkia, a genus of native annual flowers. After a stint working on the ecology of ferns as an undergrad, Aidan discovered he could unite his passions for the outdoors, plants, and conservation as a field biologist. He is most excited to spend his summers in the mountains of California, untangling how genome duplication affects the ecology of Clarkia species. When not researching, teaching, or mentoring undergrads, Aidan is probably cooking, climbing, or biking. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Allison is a first-year doctorate student in botany at California Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University focused on rare plant conservation. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware, where she majored in plant science and environmental science. Allison specializes in North American terrestrial orchid conservation, and previously worked in a tissue culture lab focused on the asymbiotic propagation of rare orchid species on the East coast. Currently, she is studying Malaxis monophyllos var. brachypoda, an orchid that is highly rare in California, with fewer than 50 remaining plants known in the state. She will begin field work for this research in the summer of 2023 in the San Bernardino Mountains.  When she isn’t in classes or the lab, Allison loves to go on hikes, bike rides, and road trips. She also has been growing tropical orchids as houseplants for over a decade. Award: Doc Burr Award

Andrea is a Ph.D. student at Stanford University's Department of Biology. Broadly, she studies climate change and invasive plant impacts, with ongoing projects on how climate change alters competitive relationships between native and invasive plants. She received her B.S. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Trinity University, where she studied how shortwave UV-B radiation alters plant pigmentation, and her M.S. in Forestry and Natural Resources from Purdue University, where she studied the community impacts of invasive Callery pear and native-invader competitive relationships in California serpentine grasslands.  Outside of classes and research, Andrea enjoys drawing, writing, and hiking. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Ash is a PhD student at The Ohio State University, where she researches the evolutionary implications of the mycoparasitic lifestyle in the Monotropoideae. Her love of western flora flourished over a decade spent in the Pacific Northwest, where she completed her BS in Botany at Oregon State University. Ash believes that by understanding the driving factors that lead to biodiverse landscapes, we can create better conservation initiatives to protect them. When she isn’t in the lab she can be found botanizing in the forest with her two children, who inspire her to teach other rising young scientists. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Ashley is a graduate student in the Natural Resources Program at Cal Poly Humboldt looking into the population genetics and effects of clonality on rare plant populations. The focal species of her research is Lathyrus biflorus, or the two-flowered pea, which has only one known population located within the Coast Range in Humboldt County. Ashley received a B.S. in Biology at the University of North Carolina. Since then she has worked in a variety of botany-related positions with government agencies, non-profits, small businesses, and with university researchers in habitats including Montana Grasslands, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and coastal dunes and wetlands of Northern California to name a few. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, gardening, searching for vintage treasures, and volunteering in her community to help conserve native plants and habitats. Award: G. Ledyard Stebbins Award

Courtney is a graduate student at the California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University where she is currently working on a floristic inventory of the Piute Mountains in the southern Sierra Nevada. After attending the University of Central Florida and obtaining bachelor’s degree in Art, she discovered the fascinating world of botany. Her late-blooming love of plants led her to become interested in many aspects of plant biology including molecular genetics and evolutionary development. More recently she has become focused on floristics and conservation and is learning how to fuel her path forward as an advocate for the protection of native plants and their ecosystems. She has worked in several plant science research labs and has conducted plant monitoring in the sagebrush steppe of eastern Washington prior to conducting field work in the Piute Mountains. Courtney enjoys exploring outdoors, learning about all aspects of natural history, and is also a bird enthusiast. Award: Hardman Native Plant Research Award

Emily is a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley and studying the interactions between coast redwoods and the fungi and bacteria that live on and in their needles. She is most interested in the potential for this research to inform conservation efforts in coast redwood forests and other native California plants that rely on the uptake of atmospheric fog water directly through their leaves to sustain their water budgets during the dry season. After graduating college, Emily worked as a field technician studying forest dynamics in the Western Cascades and is excited to get back out among giant trees. In her free time, Emily loves to read, hike, and drink lots of tea. Award: Helen Sharsmith Award

Grace is a graduate student in the Entomology and Nematology department at the University of California, Davis. As a transplant from the northeast USA, she enjoys learning about the extraordinary biodiversity of the California Floristic Province. Her current focus is on the impact of climate change on butterflies and moths and their host plants. She hopes to continue learning from all forms of longitudinal data, including from long-term ecological monitoring efforts and latent data from natural history collections. She strives daily to become a better science communicator. When she is not working, she enjoys picking up new hobbies to partake in with others. Knitting is a current favorite. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Kimberly is a graduate student in Botany at California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University. For her master’s thesis she is conducting floristic research in the Sacatar Trail Wilderness, a steep and seldom-studied portion of the southeastern Sierra Nevada. Her passion for botany began at an early age growing up in the Pacific Northwest, but her interest in rugged desert plants led her to earning her B.S. degree in Biology at Cal Poly Pomona. She spent the following three years working as a conservation technician at California Botanic Garden in both the invasive plant and seed bank programs before joining the graduate program in 2021. Kimberly hopes that her current and future research will shed light on the effects of climate change on plant distribution and help to inform habitat conservation efforts. Award: Helen Sharsmith Award

Laurel is a second year MS student studying restoration ecology in the Graduate Group in Ecology at UC Davis. She hopes to identify plant communities that support ecosystem functions in her home state of California. Her thesis research studies the effects of three grassland restoration treatments on soil organic carbon sequestration. She spent the last eight years working in botanical field research and environmental education in Colorado, Alaska, Washington and California. After graduation, she hopes to work directly in land management and restoration in the greater Bay Area. In her free time, Laurel enjoys backpacking, gardening, and making ceramics and stained glass. Award: Helen Sharsmith Award

Laurel is an undergraduate student at the University of California Los Angeles where she is about to complete her degree in Environmental Science with minors in Conservation Biology and Environmental Engineering. Fittingly named after the California Bay Laurel tree, she is passionate about conserving and increasing access to California native plants and their respective ecosystems. Currently, she is conducting a toyon common garden experiment in two contrasting UC Natural Reserves funded by the Whitcome Fellowship and the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. She also is working as a habitat restoration technician at the last remaining wetland in Los Angeles County, the Ballona Wetlands, and is president of a club that does habitat restoration on UCLA’s campus. When not in the lab, the classroom, or the field, Laurel loves grabbing boba with friends, cooking vegan food, and exploring new ecosystems via hiking and using iNaturalist. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Mahima is a first-year graduate student at California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University where she is taking on a phylogenetic study of the Eriogonum deflexum complex. Her interest in plants was sparked from taking organismal biology with Dr. Dianne Anderson at Point Loma Nazarene University. From there, Mahima’s passion for plants grew as she conducted undergraduate research on California coastal sage scrub. She is fascinated about ethnobotany and understanding how plants are adapted to their environment, especially those in California. Now given this opportunity to study wild buckwheats with her advisor, Dr. Travis Columbus, she is excited to learn more about these amazing plants that are so diverse in California and western North America. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Peri Lee is a master's student in botany at the California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University. They are currently working on examining the morphological and genetic differences between two disjunct populations of a rare plant, Chloropyron tecopense (Tecopa Bird's Beak) in order to enhance conservation efforts of this at-risk species. They are also writing a flora of the Silver Peak Range, a wilderness study area near the California border in Nevada in which C. tecopense occurs. Peri Lee has spent many years working seasonal botany and ecology jobs across the western US, from Joshua Tree to Alaska, but botanizing in the desert is always their favorite. When not in class or working on their project, they can be found hiking, river-running, and making ceramics with both wild-dug and commercial clays. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Rachel is a first-year Biology graduate student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo who is researching the impacts of climate change on alpine plant communities in Yosemite National Park. She grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills where her fascination in the local flora developed at a young age as she spent time exploring the nearby Merced River Canyon. Since graduating from UC Davis, she has worked with American Rivers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Park Service in Yosemite and Kings Canyon on a variety of ecological restoration and meadow monitoring projects. In her free time, she enjoys playing the accordion, backpacking, and gardening. Award: Natalie Hopkins Award

Rachel is a graduate student in Botany at California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University where she is a first year master's student and completing a flora of the eastern Sierra Nevada. She graduated from Washington State University in 2022 with a B.S in Biology. For two seasons she worked with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as a Natural Resource Technician managing and eradicating noxious invasive species. Originally a Washington Native, she is excited to learn a new flora and become familiarized with the Sierra Nevadas. Rachel enjoys hiking, traveling, cooking with friends, and embroidering. Award: Natalie Hopkins Award

Selena is a masters botany student at the California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University where she is assessing the drivers of flower color polymorphisms in Erythranthe discolor. She fell in love with conservation and public education when she was an intern at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2018. After studying disease ecology in vineyards for a couple of years, she’s back studying the California flora! She is passionate about bringing the wonders of native plants into the hands of the general public. When not working or studying, Selena enjoys looking for pollinators and mountain biking. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award

Yuxin is a fourth-year Botany Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She grew up in a small city in Sichuan, China. Inspired by her grandfather who dedicated his whole life preserving the local forest, she went to college majoring in Biology and found her passion in plants. During her volunteer for a field ecology study in Tibet, she decided to study plants associated with mountains. Her research focuses on the biogeography and evolution of the genus Frasera, a genus in Gentianaceae that has the highest diversity in southern California and Nevada. Highly adapted to the sub-alpine ecosystem with restricted distribution, multiple species in Frasera are vulnerable to climate change. Although she regards plants as her true love, she also has a wide interest in social science and philosophy and used to be a science journalist in her gap year. Award: CNPS Student Research Grant Award