Beyte  Barrios

Beyte Barrios obtained her MS in the Department of Biological Sciences of FIU. Currently she is a PhD student in the plant ecology lab of Dr. Suzanne Koptur at FIU. Her work and research experience extend across different areas related to the biodiversity of plants. Her main interests are tropical forest plants, focusing on taxonomy, ecology and phenology. She is particularly interested in ecological problems associated with habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity.  Beyte's Ph.D. research focuses on the understory species of the South Florida pine rockland. She is particularly interested in their ecology, phenology and reproductive biology. Under the supervision of our Dr. Eric Von Wettberg she plans to conduct research on how habitat fragmentation affects the genetic structure of Angadenia berteroi a native plant of the South Florida pine rocklands.

Catherine Bravo obtained her B.Sc. in Biology after studying tree composition and diversity of mountain forests in Peru, her home country. She then worked in several environmental projects as part of the botany team. During the last few years, she worked as an educational and training assistant for the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), through the Global Programs and Partnerships Division, organizing and designing field courses for students and professionals from the Andean countries. More recently, Catherine was working for the Network of Conservation Educators & Practitioners, an initiative of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History to strengthen the capacity in science and conservation in Peruvian universities. Through her master studies, Catherine wants to study the dynamic of cloud forests in the Central Andes of Peru. Catherine is working under the supervision of Dr. Kenneth Feeley.

Catherine Bravo

              Cara Cooper

Cara Cooper is a Master student at Florida International University where she is studying Environmental Sciences. Working under the direction of Dr. Hong Liu, Cara’s research is focused on the invasive grass, Melinis repens. Through her research, Cara hopes to develop best management practices for controlling the species in pine rocklands. Cara is very involved at FIU, where she is the President of Students for Environmental Action and a member of the FIU Sustainability Committee.

          Jason Downing          

Tonya Fotinos is a Master student at FIU studying the population genetics and salt tolerance of rare plants under the supervision of Dr. Eric von Wettberg.  Her work will focus on a few species, both from South Florida, the Caribbean, and Mediterranean, and utilize a mixture of field, greenhouse, and laboratory approaches.  She comes to us from Austin, Texas, where she worked as a ecological research laboratory manager at the University of Texas.

         
Tonya Fotinos          

Brian Machovina

 Robert McElderry is the current Lisa D. Anness Fellow in Tropical Plant Biology and his Ph.D. is being co-advised by Dr. Joyce Maschinski and Dr. Carol Horvitz.  While it is well known that periodic disturbance is often necessary in maintaining plant communities, Robert is working to understand how the effects of a disturbance regime are transmitted through host plants to their specialized insect herbivores.  In the fire-maintained pine rocklands of South Florida, the Florida leafwing (Anaea floridalis) uses pineland croton (Croton linearis) exclusively as its larval food plant.  Using a combination of ecological experiments and mathematical models, Robert will ask how leafwing population dynamics respond to the occurrence of fire, given the dependence of pineland croton on frequent fire.  With fire management a major consideration for the mitigation of leafwing population decline, a stochastic model incorporating resource and leafwing population dynamics along with the random occurrence of fire is key in testing fire management strategies to find the plan that optimizes the long-term outlook for persistence of the Florida leafwing.

         
Robert McElderry          

Evan Rehm

Vanessa Sanchez

Vanessa Sanchez obtained her B.A. in Biology with a research specialization from St. Thomas University (STU). As a Science and Mathematics Fellow at STU, she worked at Dr. Pilar Maul's Plant Biology Lab, where she conducted research in the micropropagation of plants through plant tissue culture, in species like Lupinus westianus, a federally protected Florida plant, and Hippeastrum.She also worked in developing a sensitive quantitative real  time PCR assay for the detection of Avocado Sunblotch Viroid (ASBVd). Vanessa worked at the USDA-ARS-SHRS for two years at the Ornamentals and Genetics Plant Laboratory, under the supervision of Dr. Alan Merrow, where she gained extensive experience both generating and analyzing microsatellite DNA and targeted DNA sequences. She is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Agroecology at FIU, under the direction of Dr. Eric vonWettberg and Dr. Krish Jayachandran.

Klara Scharnagl obtained her B.A. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Chicago. While there, she volunteered with graduate students under the direction of Thorsten Lumbsch in the mycology department of the Field Museum in Chicago. In 2011 Klara received the prestigious Young Botanist Award from the Botanical Society of America. She now volunteers with Rick and Jean Seavey, lichenologists in Everglades National Park. Following her B.A. she began to pursue a B.Sc. in Biology at FIU, and has transitioned from that into an M.S. in Environmental Studies with the Agroecology Program at FIU. Her thesis, under the direction of Dr. Eric vonWettberg and Prof. Krish Jayachandran (Department of Earth and the Environment of FIU), will focus on mycorrhizal communities of native legumes of south Florida, and how species found in these communities may have colonized leguminous crops in south Florida. Her particular interest is in species interaction on both the fungal/fungal and fungal/plant levels. In summer 2011 she participated in a month-long internship surveying fungal biodiversity in the forests of northern Thailand. She will also present a poster on her research in Thailand at the annual meeting of the Mycological Society of America in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Klara Scharnagl

Emily Warschefsky

A native Michigander, Emily Warschefsky moved to the Miami heat after receiving her B.A. in Biology from Reed College. She is now pursuing her PhD in Biology in Dr. Eric von Wettberg’s lab at FIU. Her academic interests in botany are rooted in species interactions – particularly hybridization and plant-microbe symbioses – and their relationship to plant distribution and speciation. Beyond botany, Emily enjoys: swamp walks, lichens, pie-baking, jam-canning, quilting, rock climbing, and canoeing.

Wyatt Sharber is the 2011 Lisa D. Anness Fellow in Tropical Plant Biology, co-advised by Dr. Barbara Whitlock and Dr. Carl Lewis. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B.S. in Botany and Zoology. While at Oklahoma State, he studied the species boundaries of the subtropical milkweed, Asclepias pringlei (Greenm.) Woodson. In his co-advised position at the University of Miami and the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, Wyatt plans to study the systematics of tropical milkweeds (Family Apocynaceae), particularly in regards to trait evolution, biogeography, and conservation.

Wyatt Sharber