Like most scientific research institutions, The New York Botanical Garden regularly hosts visiting scientists, but it’s especially gratifying to welcome back former graduate students who have gone on to important positions elsewhere.
That was the case recently when Natalia Pabón-Mora, Ph.D., returned to the Garden for several weeks. Dr. Pabón-Mora, who received her Ph.D. in 2012, is currently a professor at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia.
She took a break from her research to talk with Lawrence M. Kelly, Ph.D., Director of the Commodore Matthew Perry Graduate Studies Program at the Botanical Garden, about what attracted her to the Garden as a place to study plant science.
For as much time as our scientists spend surrounded by centrifuges, microscopes, and the minutiae of scientific investigation, botanical inspiration can just as easily begin with something as simple as admiring a plant’s stunning good looks—a fact NYBG grad student Gwynne Lim will happily confirm. Her muse came in the form of the Tacca genus, more specifically the bat flower, a “gothic and macabre” plant which captured her imagination and led her down the path of exploration.
As a specialist in the systematics and reproductive biology of Tacca, Lim’s knowledge extends well into the current research being done to determine the genus’ medicinal uses, as well as its potential viability as a famine crop. But she certainly hasn’t lost that sense of wonder and discovery; of seeing the bat flower for the first time in the wild, or roughing it through miles of challenging terrain for the singular reward of witnessing something no other botanist has seen before. Watch the video below for an interview with Lim—it should help you understand how, so very often, discovery begins with a living muse.
The New York Botanical Garden may be a hub of environmental conservation and a botanical museum, but it’s also an institution of growth—and I’m not just referencing our plant collections. Here in our laboratories we host an international body of students whose enthusiasm for botany and its related disciplines fires a passion for learning, with many of them pursuing graduate degrees through research at the NYBG. Of these, a handful were more than happy to sit down and tell us about their chosen fields and the motivations that brought them here, as well as the tools and techniques they employ in their day-to-day studies.
As a first-year grad student with a specialization in freshwater green algae, Robin Sleith spends plenty of time around lakes and rivers, often trawling for algal species with an improvised tool that Dr. Kenneth Karol and his post-doc, Dr. John Hall, dreamed up from an egg whisk. But while the collection methods may be simplistic, the science behind Sleith’s studies is anything but. Check out the video below to see how a childhood spent exploring the wilderness of New Hampshire led Robin to the cusp of a career as a scientist and conservationist.
