From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2024.
Bertrand Black is a Ph.D. candidate in Plant Biology at the University of Vermont. He joined Botany as a predoctoral fellow in August 2024, working under the mentorship of Eric Schuettpelz. His dissertation focuses on the phylogenomics, biogeography, and systematics of American lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina complex), with an emphasis on understanding their evolutionary relationships, species diversity, and historical biogeography. While at the Smithsonian, he will continue his work integrating next-generation sequence data and the collection of preserved specimens housed in the herbarium to document unrecognized lady fern diversity across the Americas. At the University of Vermont, he also teaches field courses on plant identification and how to prepare museum-quality plant collections.
Angélica Gallego Narbón started a Peter Buck fellowship in October 2024 in the NMNH Department of Botany under the supervision of Jun Wen. Her postdoctoral research examines the influence of climate and biogeography in the evolution of several Araliaceae lineages, with a special focus in the disjunct Asian-Neotropical genus Dendropanax and the ivy genus Hedera. She recently completed her Ph.D. focused on the systematics and evolution of the biggest clade of the plant family Araliaceae (Asian Palmate group) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. Her dissertation investigated the evolutionary relationships of the genera within this clade, as well as the evolution, biogeography, and ecology of ivies in their natural habits in western Europe. During this period, she had the opportunity to work at the Smithsonian with Wen supported by the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program (SIFP). Her research interests include studying the plant family Araliaceae from an integrative perspective, combining phylogenomics, biogeography, diversification, climate and functional trait analyses. Her research can be followed on her social media accounts (X: @agallegonarbon, ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica-Gallego-Narbon).
Yali Li is a visiting graduate student from the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. A Ph.D. student in Plant Biology, her thesis focuses on the conservation genomics of Firmiana danxiaensis (Malvaceae), a critically endangered species currently found in only six locations in Guangdong Province and Fujian Province, China. The species is naturally distributed across Danxia and Karst landforms. Under the supervision of Jun Wen, she is working to better elucidate the endangered mechanisms of F. danxaiensis as well as its adaptation to specialized habitats. She has additional interests in biogeography, dispersal, and evolution of the Firmiana genus.
Ting Wang, a visiting postdoctoral fellow from South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, joined Botany in September 2024, working under the supervision of Jun Wen and Eric Schuettpelz. Her project focuses on the phylogenic and biogeographical origins of Angiopteris (Marattiaceae), a genus that is widely distributed from Madagascar to the Pacific Islands. At the Smithsonian, she plans to supplement the DNA from the Pacific Island samples with the aim of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary history of Angiopteris across time and space.