An award from the Garden Club of America

I'm very happy and honored to have been selected for the Garden Club of America's (GCA) award in Tropical Botany. I look forward to putting my award to good use this summer working with high school interns in Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden's (FTBG) Fairchild Challenge. This summer, interns and I will use FTBG's extensive collections of tropical plants to understand which kinds of species are most susceptible to thermal damage as a result of climate change.

I'm also happy to say that Nichole Tiernan, friend, other PhD student from my FIU cohort, and FTBG Fellow, has also received this award. Nichole studies the phylogeny and systematics of the genus Plumeria. See FTBG's blog post to read more about Nichole's work.

I encourage other botanists and graduate students whose interests extend beyond plants to apply to GCA awards in upcoming months. The GCA has several types of grants not limited to botany and several appear to target master's students. Check out the GCA and its scholarships here: www.gcamerica.org/