From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 4, October 2017.
The Department of Botany is happy to host high school, undergraduate, and post-graduate student interns throughout the year. Internship activities peak during the summer, and 2017 was no exception. Below are a number of reflections from both interns and their supervisors highlighting the intern summer experience in Botany.
Intern Clara Cebral-Marani (third from the right) joins Botany staff to view the partial eclipse on the National Mall in Washington DC on August 21, 2017.
Clara Cebral-Marani, rising senior at a Virginia high school:
This past summer, I was a summer high school intern in the Botany Department and had the privilege to have Erika Gardner as my mentor. The internship was an incredible experience for me. I assisted Gardner in multiple tasks, such as care and handling of specimens, transaction entry using KE EMu database, and preparation of large lots of specimens to be shipped to herbaria worldwide. I attended several collection tours and two useful lectures. One of the lectures was about how to apply for a Smithsonian job, which will be useful in the future. I was fortunate to work with a fun group, and was able to enjoy the Great American Solar Eclipse with them.
Colleen Murdock
Colleen Murdock, recent graduate of Trinity College:
It was such a pleasure working with CTFS-ForestGEO this summer. I learned so much about their extensive global reach of 65 research sites and hundreds of scientists working to understand the dynamics of the Earth’s forests. I enjoyed contributing to their wide variety of projects, including organizing and adding content to their new website and helping chart and analyze geographic data. Thank you so much for a wonderful learning experience. I’m moving on to an internship with Smithsonian’s Center for Learning and Digital Access this fall, so I hope to stay involved with ForestGEO in the future.
Libby O’Brien, undergraduate student at Villanova University:
Elizabeth O'Brian (intern, second from left) and her advisors (L to R), Vicki Funk, Robert (Bort) Edwards, and Aleks Radosavljevic.
I was fortunate enough to spend this past summer in the Botany Department working with Vicki Funk, Bort Edwards, and Aleksandar Radosavljevic as a part of the Natural History Research Experience (NHRE) program. Over the course of 10 weeks, I joined the team investigating the diversity of the Guiana Shield of northern South America. I analyzed patterns of richness and diversity from both genetic and spatial data. It was a summer of firsts: my first research experience and my first encounter with genetic data. I learned how to navigate the Metro system in Washington, D.C. as well as how to manipulate spatial data in programs like BioDiverse. It was a summer of re-strategizing what to do with so many data points and remembering to write everything down. I am grateful for all of the guidance and mentorship I’ve received from my mentors, as well as their willingness to keep me in the loop for the continuation of this project. I look forward to furthering this research with the wonderful group of people I met in Botany.
Katherine Rudebusch
Alice Tangerini hosted intern Katherine Rudebusch, who was a recent graduate of the University of California at Monterey Bay’s Scientific Illustration Program. Rudebusch scanned dozens of illustrations for uploading to the Botanical Art Collection in EMu’s multimedia site. Many of these required extensive manipulation to remove discoloration from the backgrounds, usually due to long storage in acidic environments. She also rehoused these illustrations in archival protective sleeves and folders. Rudebusch visited several museums on the National Mall during her stay and joined Tangerini at Hirschhorn Museum evening art programs. On her last week, Rudebusch started work on an illustration of a new species of Fabaceae from the Amazon for researcher Aleksandar Radosavljevic.