Photo Credit: Mitchell Coleman
Previous CalBotSoc Speakers
The CalBotSoc botany speaker series showcases and promotes the work of early career botanists. The Society also occasionally invites botanists undertaking extraordinary work in West American botany to present their current project.
January 8, 2026: Mitchell Coleman, PhD, Executive Director, Tejon Ranch Conservancy: “Using Ecological Niche Breadth and Phylogeny to Evaluate Functional Trait Variation in Halophytes“
February 12, 2026: Mare Nazaire, PhD, Curator of the Herbarium at California Botanic Garden, Assistant Professor at Claremont Graduate University: “Collaborations between herbaria and archives: creating the extended specimen network”
March 12, 2026: Nancy R. Morin, PhD, Research Associate, University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley: “Nemacladus—So many intriguing questions still “
May 14, 2026: Ricardo Kreibel, PhD, Assistant Curator and McAllister Chair of Botany, California Academy of Sciences: “Moving Flowers: Evolution of Floral Form, Function, and Pollination in Salvia”
June 11, 2026: Sarah Jacobs, PhD, Assistant Curator and Howell Chair of Western North American Botany at the California Academy of Sciences: “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be Castilleja: (in)congruent signals of species boundaries in two species complexes”
August 13, 2026: Tito Abbo, PhD, University of California, Riverside: “L’enfer de Michel Adanson: adventures in diverse, rare, endangered, hybrid and sometimes even paraphyletic manzanitas”
September 10, 2026: J. Travis Columbus, PhD, California Botanic Garden, Claremont: “Diversification and Classification of Wild Buckwheats (Eriogonum) and Relatives—the Big Picture”
January 8, 2025: Tim Dickinson, PhD, Senior Curator Emeritus, Green Plant Herbarium, Royal Ontario Museum, Canada: “A taxonomic hypothesis for California black-fruited hawthorns”
February 13, 2025: Jesus Martinez-Gomez, PhD, UC Berkeley: “The genetic basis of variable ultraviolet pigmentation in yellow monkey flowers (Erythrante sect. Simiola)“
March 13, 2025: Nina House, University and Jepson Herbaria, UC Berkeley: ““Documenting Local Floristic Diversity to Contribute to the Conservation & Protection of Native Plants“
April 10, 2025: Richie Hodel, PhD, Director and Curator, Deaver Herbarium & Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University: “Prunus (Rosaceae): a ‘unicorn clade’ for studying tropical to temperate biome transitions”
May 8, 2025: David Giblin, PhD, Collections Manager and Research Botanist at the University of Washington Herbarium, Burke Museum: “50 Peaks Project – Documenting Alpine Plant Diversity and Distribution in Washington’s Cascade Range (and Beyond)“
June 12, 2025: Ixchel Sarahi Gonzalez Ramirez, PhD, UC Berkeley: “Studies on the biology and evolution of Aytoniaceae: a liverwort way of being a land plant“
July 10, 2025: Carrie M. Tribble, PhD, Assistant Professor and Curator, Department of Biology and Burke Museum, University of Washington: “From the Pacific Northwest to the High Andes: Evolution and Biogeography of Geophytic Plants“
August 14, 2025: German Vargas-Gutiérrez, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Botany & Plant Pathology and Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University: “Drought and heat: species’ environmental limits through the lens of plant physiology”
September 11, 2025: Andrew Clare, Stewardship Coordinator, The Nature Conservancy in California, Frank and Joan Randall Preserve: “It All Connects at the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve”
October 9, 2025: Jodi M. McGraw, Ecologist and Principal, Jodi McGraw Consulting: “Effects of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire on the recovery of Santa Cruz and Butano cypress”
November 13, 2025: Marty Purdy, Assistant State Botanist, Endangered Plants Program, New Mexico Forestry Division: “Updates from the State of New Mexico’s Endangered Plants Program“
December 11, 2025: Walter Fertig, PhD, Collections Manager, Marion Ownbey Herbarium, School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University: “Gap Analysis of the Rare Plants of Washington, Utah, and Wyoming: How Well Are Rare Species Being Protected?”
January 11, 2024: Steve Matson, CNPS: “2023 Highlights of a season in the field”
February 8, 2024: Susan Fawcett, PhD, University and Jepson Herbaria, UC Berkeley: “Phylogenomics, taxonomy and deep hybrid speciation: studies in the fern family Thelypteridaceae “
March 14, 2024: Ingrid Jordon-Thaden, PhD, Director of Botany Garden and Greenhouse, University of Wisconsin, Madison: “Botanical stories of Draba in the North American Cordillera ”
April 11, 2024, Oscar Mauricio Vargas-Hernandez, PhD, Assistant Professor, Cal Poly Humboldt: “Testing for budding speciation in the California Floristic Province”
May 9, 2024, Michael G. Simpson, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Diego State University (SDSU) and curator of the SDSU Herbarium: “Plant Dispersal between the American Continents and the Special Case of the Popcorn Flowers”
June 13, 2024, Rebecca A. Nelson, University of California, Davis: “The Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant-Pollinator Mutualisms in Serpentine Meadows”
July 11, 2024, Glenn Morrison, PhD, University of California, Riverside: “Patterns of Genetic and Morphological Variation in Manzanitas”
July 11, 2024, Sophia Winitsky, PhD, Montana State University: “Phylogenomics of Marina, Fabaceae, Illuminates Overlooked Biodiversity within a Baja California Peninsula Radiation”
September 12, 2024, Irene Liao, PhD, UCLA: “Exploring monocot nectary evolution through a genetic characterization of banana and asparagus gynoecia at the single cell level”
October 10, 2024, Niveditha Ramadoss, PhD, San Diego State University and UC Riverside: “Exploring the Spiky Secrets of Sexual Systems in Cholla”
November 14, 2024, Brody Sandel, PhD, Santa Clara University, CA: “Tasty seeds and pernicious weeds: Humanity’s love-hate relationship with the grasses”
December 12, 2024, Allyssa Richards, UC Riverside: “Sweet Secrets of Cacti: How Ferocactus Uses Nectar to Survive and Thrive”
January 12, 2023: Keir Morse, PhD, California Botanic Garden: “Systematics and Conservation of the Genus Malacothamnus (Malvaceae)”
February 9, 2023: Forrest Freund, PhD, UC Berkeley: “Finding hidden quillworts: Identifying cryptic species in Isoëtes using an integrative systematic approach”
March 9, 2023: Riley Scaff, Pitzer College: “Restoring an Iconic Joshua Tree Forest: Revegetation, natural recovery and soil ecology in a Mojave Desert burn area”
June 8, 2023: Regan Dunn, PhD, La Brea Tar Pits & Museum: “Drought, fire, extinction, and the formation of the modern chaparral of Southern California in the latest Pleistocene”
July 13, 2023: Tadeo Ramirez-Parada, UC Santa Barbara: “Plasticity and not adaptation is the primary source of temperature-mediated variation in flowering phenology in North America”
August 10, 2023: Israel Borokini, PhD, UC Berkeley: “Applying models of geographical distributions for hypothesis testing and species conservation”
September 14, 2023: Kathryn Uckele, PhD, UC Santa Cruz: “Hybridization among three juniper taxa along the Sierra-Great Basin Ecotone”
October 12, 2023: Katherine Waselkov, PhD, CSU Fresno: “Misunderstood Relatives of Famous Weeds: The Genus Amaranthus in the Southwestern U.S.”
November 9, 2023: Ioana Anghel, UCLA: Evolutionary relationships and phenotypic patterns in Linanthus
December 14, 2023: Candela Blanco Moreno, PhD, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain & Cal Poly Humboldt
January 13, 2022: Mitchell Coleman, Tejon Ranch Conservancy and University of California, Riverside: “Conservation on Tejon Ranch and ecophysiology of halophytes in the San Joaquin Desert”
February 10, 2022: Kristy Snyder, Eastern Washington University: “The functional role of annual seeds and biochar in Prairie restoration”
March 10, 2022: Ryan Buck, San Diego State University: “The Pinyon Pine Syngameon: Modeling the Past to Understand the Present and Predict the Future”
May 12, 2022: Claire Willing, PhD, Stanford University: “Forest microbiomes and climate change: Microbial communities as mediators of forest health”
June 9, 2022: Avery Hill, Stanford University: “Vegetation-climate mismatch in California’s Sierra Nevada conifer forests”
August 11, 2022: Helen Holmlund, PhD, Pepperdine University:”How do California ferns survive in the drought-prone chaparral?”
October 10, 2022: Noah Teller, UC Riverside: “Plant community structure responses to invasive grass removal in wet meadows of the Sierra Nevada”
November 10, 2022: Christopher T. Cosma, UC Riverside: “Prioritizing California Native Plants for Butterfly and Moth Conservation”
December 8, 2022: Brooke Rose, UC Riverside: “Rarity, geography, and plant exposure to global change in the California Floristic Province”
January 14, 2021: Lorena Villanueva-Almanza, PhD: “A Tale of Two Palms: the genus Washingtonia in Alta and Baja California”
February 11, 2021: Adriana Hernandez: “Floral trait evolution and parallel local adaptation in a hyper-diverse California endemic lily, Calochortus venustus“
March 11, 2021: Justin Luong: “What happens to restored coastal California grasslands years after planting and seeding efforts?”
April 8, 2021: Natalie Love, PhD: “Region-specific responses to climate change in Streptanthus tortuous“
May 13, 2021: Suzanne Pierre, PhD: “Critical Ecology: Defining sociobiophysical drivers of ecological change”
June 10, 2021: Jenna Ekwealor, PhD: “Adaptation, acclimation, and refugia: How mosses survive and thrive in the desert”
July 8, 2021: Maria Jesus: “Worth more than gold: A vascular flora of the southern Inyo Mountains, Inyo County, CA
August 12, 2021: Rachael L. Olliff-Yang, PhD: “The importance of flowering season duration and the case for planting for pollinators
September 9, 2021: Brianne Palmer: “Why Should Botanists Care About Biological Soil Crusts?”
October 14, 2021: Daniel Winkler, PhD: “Protected and susceptible: climate change impacts on plants in our global parks”
November 11, 2021: Sarah Jacobs, PhD: “Using paintbrushes to study speciation”
December 9, 2021: Ryoko Oono, PhD: “New methods for community survey and species identification: How amplicon sequencing can be used for conservation”
