Botany Master's Student

I am currently a Botany M.S. student at California Botanic Garden (Claremont Graduate University). I am doing a floristic study of the Salmon and Manter Creek watersheds, located in the southern Sierra Nevada.

I moved to southern California from Syracuse, NY in 2017 after completing my Bachelor's degree in Biology at SUNY Oswego. I worked with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy for a short time, and then with the California Botanic Garden (previously Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden) for a year and a half. These jobs introduced me to the California native flora, and gave me a solid foundation in field work, plant identification, and seed banking. I began my graduate education at the California Botanic Garden in September 2019.

I am currently the vice president for Southern California Botanists, and I am the student representative on the American Society of Plant Taxonomist’s Public Policy Committee.

My interests lie in conservation, botanical field work, natural history collections, public policy, and science communication. I hope to one day work for a nonprofit, where I can work to understand and conserve plant life, and inform the general public on conservation and botanical issues.