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Tatiana
Arias
University of Missouri - Columbia
I learned to love biology and the natural
world as a small child. I used to visit my father once a
year in Bahia Solano, Choco, Colombia. There we spent our
vacations exploring the jungle, and I made my decision to
become a biologist because I wanted to know more about the
biodiversity of my country. |
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Janelle
Burke
Cornell University, L. H. Bailey Hortorium
What I really wanted after high school
was an internship at the Brookfield zoo. My initial interests
were in the biology of cute, cuddly mammals. Instead a friend
helped me find a job in the herbarium of the Morton Arboretum,
where he was a volunteer. |
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Laura
Burkle
Dartmouth College
I can’t remember a time when I
wasn’t interested in plants. As a kid, the first thing
I noticed about plants is that they sit still. My parents
always kept house plants and rattled off long names, like
Philodendron, that I never seemed to be able to remember. |
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Mauricio
Diazgranados
Saint Louis University, Missouri Botanical Garden
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Jill
Duarte
Pennsylvania State University
I have to admit, when I first got interested
in biological research in high school, I wasn’t interested
in plants. I even took my botany exam as a drop grade. But
as learned more about biology, and especially molecular
evolution - I made a conscious decision to work with plants
for the rest of my life, because there’s so much more complexity
in their genomes than the typical animal, fungus, or bacterium. |
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Uromi
Goodale
Yale University
In high school, before going on a field
trip with my Botany teacher to the Sinharaja rain forest
in Sri Lanka, we watched a movie about the research done
there. I was mesmerized as a world I have never been to
or seen before unfolded in front of me. Professor Savithri
Gunatilleke was climbing a ladder to investigate the pollination
biology of the Dipetrocarpaceae family. |
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Nathan
Jud
University of Maryland College Park
My interest in science was greatly influenced
by my father and grandfather. They both taught me from an
early age the importance of conservation and the value of
scientific inquiry through their interest in cave exploration
and astronomy. Like so many kids, I was enamored with dinosaurs,
fossils, and evolution. Whenever I was asked what I wanted
to be when I grew up, I always answered “paleontologist.” |
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Kyra
Krakos
Washington University, St Louis
The first scientific experiment I ever
did was not a glowing success in my opinion. The main problem
was that I was six years old and had difficulty with the
concept of great amounts of time. After listening closely
as my father read the geologic history of earth from my
Child's First Encyclopedia, I set out with grim determination
to make oil. |
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Sarah
Kyker
Case Western Reserve University
As an undergraduate at Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio, my major initially was Secondary Education
with a concentration in earth and life sciences. My desire
to be a science teacher was influenced by the many great
teachers I had during junior high and high school. I especially
remember the influence of my sixth grade and eighth grade
science teachers who guided my interests in science fair
projects. |
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Cassie
Majetic
University of Pittsburgh
Unlike many botanists, my interest in
plants, botany, and science came in a rather roundabout
way. I was always fascinated with nature, but in a more
active, playful way - some of my earliest memories are of
fishing trips with my father and grandfather and camping
trips with my mother and our Girl Scout troops over the
years. |
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Tracy
Misiewicz
Northwestern University and Chicago Botanic
Garden
I distinctly remember developing a passion
for scientific discovery when I was twelve years old. I
looked forward to every Wednesday in Mr. Miller’s
science class when we would perform a new experiment. At
the completion of the course, my future had never been clearer.
I was going to be a scientist, separating water into oxygen
and hydrogen and testing different antacids in vinegar every
day. |
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Olofron
Plume
Cornell University
I was fascinated by the identification and use of medicinal
plants from an early age. I also loved writing and
literature and ended up graduating with a B.A. in English
Literature instead of Biology in 1997, but my passion for
plants stayed with me, and, even while I pursued other work,
I never stopped thinking of myself as a scientist. |
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Julia
Nowak
University of British Columbia
Ever since I can remember, I was fascinated
with the natural world. I loved picking and drying flowers
and leaves and observing how nature worked. When we lived
in Ukraine, my parents and I would often go mushroom picking.
These trips got me out to appreciate nature and learn about
it, as well as about the mushrooms that we picked. |
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Roxanne
Steele
University of Texas - Austin
It is not every day that a mechanical
engineer turns botanist, but it is with great enthusiasm
that I am pursuing a Ph.D. in Plant Biology at The University
of Texas at Austin. Because I love to both learn and teach,
I transformed my interest in nature and science from a hobby
into a life-long pursuit of gaining knowledge about the
natural world and sharing it with others. |
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Cheng-Chiang
Wu
Harvard University
The blessed journey to Botany started
when I was admitted to the Department of Botany at National
Taiwan University (NTU), as certified Talented Students
in Biology by the Ministry of Education, Republic of China.
Since my study in college, the wonderful biodiversity in
the subtropical island of Taiwan has never failed to amaze
me. |
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