Botany Lunch

Botany Lunch is currently a hybrid model, in person and online via Zoom. Invitations are sent weekly via the Botany Lunch Google Group. Sign yourself up using Berkeley bConnected (https://bconnected.berkeley.edu/), or if you are off campus contact Brent Mishler, BMishler@berkeley.edu.

Botany Lunch meets during the academic year on Fridays at noon in the herbaria seminar room, 1002 Valley Life Sciences Building (entrance in small corridor by north building entrance on ground floor).

We are looking for speakers for the fall 2025 session. Please fill out this Google form (https://forms.gle/a7Egpj5SsbGKGvqcA) if you have a recommendation.

ALL WELCOME!!

Spring 2025 schedule
Click here to view schedules from previous sessions.

Jan. 17  : Barbara Ertter, Research Associate, Snake River Plains Herbarium, Boise State University; and Curator of Western North American Flora, University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley
     The West’s Vanishing Wildflowers

Jan. 24  Kristy Mualim, PhD Student, Moi Lab (IB), University of California, Berkeley.
     Genetic diversity loss in the Anthropocene

Jan. 31  James Shevock, Botany Research Associate & Fellow, California Academy of Sciences.
     NSF Biodiversity Inventories: Plant and Lichen Collecting in the Southern Philippines

Feb. 7  Tommy Jenkinson, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, California State University, East Bay.
     Global Change and the Evolutionary Ecology of Amphibian Chytrid Fungus

Feb. 14  James T. Costa, Executive Director & Professor, Highlands Biological Station of Western Carolina University.
     Alice Eastwood, Gertrude Jekyll, and Horticultural History: The Wallace Connection [special Darwin Day celebration talk].

Feb. 21  [talk postponed]
     

Feb. 28  John Reid, co-author of Ever Green and the founder and former president of Conservation Strategy Fund.
     Big ecosystems, abundance, and culture

Mar. 7  Lauren Gillespie, PhD Student, Moi Lab (IB), University of California, Berkeley.
     Plant biodiversity monitoring in the Anthropocene with foundation models

Mar. 14  L. Francisco Henao-Diaz, new Postdoctoral Scholar, University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley.
     Fruitful Journeys: Macroevolution, Diversification, and Eco-Evolutionary Tales from the Tropics to the Himalayas

Mar. 21  Marina LaForgia, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, California State University Sacramento.
     Dispersal Through Time and Space: Resurrecting a dormant herbarium and identifying dispersal strategies in seeds

Mar. 28  [Spring Break].
     

Apr. 4  Susan Fawcett, Research Botanist, University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley.
     Diversity and Conservation of Loulu, Hawaii's Endemic Palms

Apr. 11  Bruce Baldwin, Jepson Curator and Professor Emeritus, Jepson Herbarium & Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley.
     New phylogenomic insights on evolution of the tarweed—silversword tribe (Madieae, Asteraceae)

Apr. 18  Paul Fine, Curator of Neotropical Flora, University and Jepson Herbaria; Professor, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley.
     Chemical diversity, natural enemies and the commonness and rarity of Amazonian tree taxa

Apr. 25  Carolyn Smith, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
     A shared responsibility: safeguarding gathering practices for future generations of Karuk basketweavers.

May 2  Ioana Anghel, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Santa Cruz.
     When the sand blossoms: evolution of species and desert adaptations in Linanthus