Natural History & Collections
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Natural History Collections
The Joseph F. Rock Herbarium at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa contains around 60,000 preserved plant specimens, representing the incredible diversity of flowering and non flowering plants, lichenized and non-lichenized fungi, and algae from across Hawai'i and the greater Pacific region. Our collections support student-led research and learning about plant evolution, diversity, and conservation. I serve as the interim collections manager, and in that capacity I support a team of seven undergraduate students who are digitizing the collections. View our data portal here. Check out any upcoming events here. Public Engagement I have given public talks to a variety of audiences on botany, ethnobotany, evolution, and data science. Please reach out if you are interested in hearing from me on these topics. One of my 2021 (rolling into 2022) resolutions is to be a more active contributor to iNaturalist! I'm particularly interested in Hawaiian ferns and lycophytes, but I have been known to dabble in animalology. Check out some my observations (and please help me ID bryophytes!) |
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systematic methods
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I organize HIPhy (Hawai'i Phylogenies), a paper reading group about methods in systematics, including building and analyzing phylogenetic trees. We meet on campus at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa but all interested systematists are welcome to join, particularly students and other early career researchers. Sign up here to get on the email list! |
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Spring 2024 Schedule:
Every other Monday at 3:00 pm, Mānoa Gardens (outside campus Ba-Le)
Jan. 22nd species concepts
Maddison, W. P., & Whitton, J. (2023). The Species as a Reproductive Community Emerging From the Past. Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists, 2(1), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.9358
Feb. 5th Dating phylogenies (fossils + DNA)
MLABudd, G., and R. Mann. "Two Notorious Nodes: a Critical Examination of Relaxed Molecular Clock Age Estimates of the Bilaterian Animals and Placental Mammals." Systematic Biology (2023).
Feb. 19th No meeting
(Presidents Day)
March 5th TBD
March 18th TBD
April 1st TBD
April 15th TBD
April 29th TBD
May 13th TBD
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Fall 2023 Schedule:
Every other Monday at 3:00 pm, Mānoa Gardens (outside campus Ba-Le)
Dec. 11th biogeographic models
Landis, M. J., Freyman, W. A., & Baldwin, B. G. (2018). Retracing the Hawaiian silversword radiation despite phylogenetic, biogeographic, and paleogeographic uncertainty. Evolution, 72(11), 2343-2359.
and!
Matzke, N. J. (2022). Statistical comparison of DEC and DEC+ J is identical to comparison of two ClaSSE submodels, and is therefore valid. Journal of Biogeography, 49(10), 1805-1824.
Nov. 27th genome sequencing for systematics
Fraser, James, et al. "An overview of genome organization and how we got there: from FISH to Hi-C." Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 79.3 (2015): 347-372.
Nov. 13th adaptive radiations
Cerca, José, et al. "Multiple paths toward repeated phenotypic evolution in the spiny‐leg adaptive radiation (Tetragnatha; Hawai'i)." Molecular Ecology 32.18 (2023): 4971-4985.
Every other Monday at 3:00 pm, Mānoa Gardens (outside campus Ba-Le)
Jan. 22nd species concepts
Maddison, W. P., & Whitton, J. (2023). The Species as a Reproductive Community Emerging From the Past. Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists, 2(1), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.9358
Feb. 5th Dating phylogenies (fossils + DNA)
MLABudd, G., and R. Mann. "Two Notorious Nodes: a Critical Examination of Relaxed Molecular Clock Age Estimates of the Bilaterian Animals and Placental Mammals." Systematic Biology (2023).
Feb. 19th No meeting
(Presidents Day)
March 5th TBD
March 18th TBD
April 1st TBD
April 15th TBD
April 29th TBD
May 13th TBD
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Fall 2023 Schedule:
Every other Monday at 3:00 pm, Mānoa Gardens (outside campus Ba-Le)
Dec. 11th biogeographic models
Landis, M. J., Freyman, W. A., & Baldwin, B. G. (2018). Retracing the Hawaiian silversword radiation despite phylogenetic, biogeographic, and paleogeographic uncertainty. Evolution, 72(11), 2343-2359.
and!
Matzke, N. J. (2022). Statistical comparison of DEC and DEC+ J is identical to comparison of two ClaSSE submodels, and is therefore valid. Journal of Biogeography, 49(10), 1805-1824.
Nov. 27th genome sequencing for systematics
Fraser, James, et al. "An overview of genome organization and how we got there: from FISH to Hi-C." Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 79.3 (2015): 347-372.
Nov. 13th adaptive radiations
Cerca, José, et al. "Multiple paths toward repeated phenotypic evolution in the spiny‐leg adaptive radiation (Tetragnatha; Hawai'i)." Molecular Ecology 32.18 (2023): 4971-4985.
Creating safe learning spaces in academia
I am dedicated to creating just experiences for all participants in biology and across academia.
Preventing sexual violence in the field: I am a certified trainer through the Building a Better Fieldwork Future program, associated with the University of California, Santa Cruz. Please contact me if you know a group interested in receiving training on how to lessen sexual harassment and assault in fieldwork settings. I was a Co-Founder and former Program Director of Project Field Equity (Fe), a graduate student led initiative at UC Berkeley to decrease sexual harassment and assault during field work and other off-campus learning experiences. I have presented at the 2019 Annual Summit of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine's Action Collaborative on Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, and previously attending the 2018 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University Campaign.
Preventing sexual violence in the field: I am a certified trainer through the Building a Better Fieldwork Future program, associated with the University of California, Santa Cruz. Please contact me if you know a group interested in receiving training on how to lessen sexual harassment and assault in fieldwork settings. I was a Co-Founder and former Program Director of Project Field Equity (Fe), a graduate student led initiative at UC Berkeley to decrease sexual harassment and assault during field work and other off-campus learning experiences. I have presented at the 2019 Annual Summit of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine's Action Collaborative on Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, and previously attending the 2018 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University Campaign.
I additionally serve on the Diversity and Equity Committee of the Society for the Study of Evolution and participated in the Root & Shoot effort to address systemic racism and other forms of oppression in plant science societies.
Teaching
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Workshops |
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IB200: Principals of Phylogenetics
University of California, Berkeley Invited Lecturer: 2019 Graduate Student Instructor: 2017 Course website ESPM/LS c46: Climate Change and the Future of California University of California, Berkeley Graduate Student Instructor: 2016 Course description Bio1B: Introductory Biology University of California, Berkeley Graduate Student Instructor: 2015 * awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award for teaching MentorshipI take mentorship seriously and expect undergraduates to engage intellectually with research projects, ideally in producing either a conference poster/ presentation or first author publication. I work with mentees through weekly or bi-weekly individual meetings and tailor individual research projects to meet their individual academic goals.
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State-dependent Diversification Models via Graphical Models and RevBayes
SSB 2020 - Systematics in the Swamp Workshop co-leader: 2020 Workshop website Introduction to R for Biologists UC Berkeley Integrative Biology Department and Jepson Herbarium Designer and Leader: 2019 Introduction to Programming for Bioinformatics Center for Computational Biology, UC Berkeley Teaching Assistant: 2018 Workshop website Introduction to R for Biologists (Spanish language) Organization for Tropical Studies Field Course, La Selva Research Station Designer and Leader: 2017 Biogeographic Models in R (Spanish Language) Universidad de Chile Designer and Leader: 2017 Introduction to R for Biologists UC Berkeley Plant and Microbial Biology Department Designer and Leader: 2016 |
