I grew up just down the road in Rancho Cucamonga where I was lucky enough to have easy access to the mountains, deserts, and beaches of Southern California and frequently visited these incredible places with my family. I have been enamored with the natural world from a young age and knew once I reached high school that I wanted to work in conservation. It wasn’t until I began attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for my undergraduate education that I discovered the fascinating world of plants and set my sights on a career in plant conservation. After changing my major so that I could better focus my coursework on botany, I received a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from Cal Poly in 2023.  My botanical work thus far has included several internships in the herbarium at Cal Poly, in Plant Records at The Huntington, in applied plant conservation right here at California Botanic Garden, and most recently conducting field surveys for the National Park Service. I am excited to further my botanical education in the fascinating flora of California and beyond, and to conduct research that hopefully has an impact on plant conservation!

For my thesis I will be studying the population genetics of Death Valley Sage (Salvia funerea) which has a limited distribution and occurs in two disjunct areas in the Mojave Desert: in and just outside of Death Valley National Park in the north and in the Bristol Mountains all the way south of interstate 40 in San Bernardino County. I will be investigating gene flow and genetic diversity within and between these disjunct areas as well as using species distribution modeling to investigate possible climatic differences between the two areas. I hope that my research outcomes can be used to inform future conservation actions for this species!