Botanical Internship

June 2014-December 2014

I had the wonderful opportunity to work alongside a number of botanists and plant enthusiasts after being hired as a botanical intern. The majority of the work was conducted through the Hoover Herbarium, Cal Poly's collection of pressed plants and facility for all things botany. 

I was tasked with finding where botanists had collected certain plants over the past century and entering that information in the Consortium of California Herbaria's database. This helps track ranges of plant species, and can be used to project range shifts resulting from climate change. 

Skills Developed

• Pressing, mounting, labeling, databasing and filing specimen sheets 
• Organizing herbarium volunteers
• Designing and creating outreach posters
• Georeferencing collected specimens 
• Hand cross-pollinating rare plants
• Rare species seed collecting, sorting, counting and germinating
• Networking with botanists across the state
• Mapping citywide tree removals 
• Mapping and updating the registry for California Big Trees