Current Events

 

---

Dr. Jeannine Cavender-Bares

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and
Director of the Harvard University Herbaria
Cambridge, MA

"A Vision for the Harvard University Herbarium in Our Rapidly Changing World"

Mark your calendar for the next NEBS Meeting on Friday, April 4, 2025 at 7pm ET.

Meeting held at Harvard University, in Haller Lecture Hall (Room 102), Geological Museum, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA

We welcome you to join us on a tour of the Farlow Herbarium, including the Farlow Library reading room and collection spaces. The tour takes place Friday, April 4, 2025, at 3-4:30 PM ahead of our monthly member meeting and will be led by Harvard University Herbaria staff. Space is limited to 20 people.
Please register here

Abstract: In our era of accelerating technological advances and biodiversity loss, herbaria are critical laboratories for understanding how life on Earth is changing. Vast reservoirs of information about plant, fungal and other life forms are housed and carefully curated within the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH). My team's work is focused on understanding how plants live in contrasting environments and influence ecological processes critical to the ecosystem functions that form our life support. Many plant functions can be detected from specimens using spectroscopic sensors combined with machine learning algorithms, providing a novel means to decipher the ecological roles of rare or remote species and to inform remote sensing methods for mapping dimensions of biodiversity from space. Far from isolated ivory towers, herbaria are hubs of interdisciplinary biodiversity exploration, education and international collaboration that underpin global biodiversity knowledge. In this talk, I will discuss my ideas for centering the HUH in cutting-edge global biodiversity science and education.

Non-members may register for the meeting access link here.

---