Current Events
November 7, 2025 Hybrid Lecture
Join us for our November meeting, which will feature a lecture by Dr. Chris Martine titled, “‘Discovering’ Species, Exploring Plant Partnerships, and Spotlighting Sexual Diversity While Using a SciComm & SciArt Underdog Outreach Approach.” Visit our Meetings page to learn more and for non-member registration.
Dr. Chris Martine attended Rutgers University for both his BS and MS before completing a PhD in Botany at the University of Connecticut. He began his tenure-track career at SUNY Plattsburgh before moving to Bucknell University in 2012. At Bucknell Chris has taught courses such as Field Botany, Art and Sex Through the Lens of Botany, and a class on the history of species discovery. He is the creator, host, and co-producer of the YouTube series, “Plants are Cool, Too!” A fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Chris is a past winner of the Peter Raven Award (from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists) and the Charles Edwin Bessey Teaching Award (from the Botanical Society of America).
Congratulations to the 2025 Junior Faculty Award Winner
Dr. Chloe Pak Drummond
Dr. Chloe Pak Drummond, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, for project “Population history, genetic diversity, and future persistence of Large-leaved Sandwort, Moehringia macrophylla (Hook.) Fenzl (Caryophyllaceae), a rare New England plant.”
Congratulations to our 2025 Graduate Student Research Award Winners
Jason Leung
Caroline Witherspoon
Jason Leung of Columbia University for project “Sequencing 19th century herbarium specimens to understand the loss of genetic diversity in a regionally extinct beach plant, Amaranthus pumilus Raf., or seabeach amaranth”
Caroline Witherspoon of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry for project “Usnea subfloridana as a model for understanding the drivers of the distribution and ecology of imperiled Usnea lichens in the northeastern United States”
Congratulations to the 2025 Les Mehrhoff Botanical Research Award Winners
Ujjal Banik
Eric Hagen
Michael Lew-Smith
Alex Karasoulos
Emmi Kurosawa
Catherine Wessel
& Will Durkin
Ujjal Banik for project “Morphologgy and eco-physiological study of green macroalgae Ulva“
Eric Hagen and Michael Lew-Smith for project “Finding Floerkea: Using herbarium specimens and biogeographic modeling to search for new populations of the recently rediscovered Floerkea proserpinacoides in Vermont”
Alex Karasoulos for project “Targeted surveys for rare vascular plants in the brackish marshes of Massachusetts”
Emmi Kurosawa for project “A survey of 15 introduced populations of critically endangered Aldrovanda vesiculosa in New England, and characterization of ecological requirements for successful cultivation”
Catherine Wessel and Will Durkin for project “Targeted surveys for Aganilis neosctotica: Historic and rare populations in coastal Maine”