Landscape Curator
Botanic Garden of Smith College, Northampton, MA
I am the Landscape Curator at the Botanic Garden of Smith College. As a graduate student in Jesse Bellemare's Lab in the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Smith College I studied the impact of climate change on Magnolia fraseri in the heart of its range in western VA. Findings of this research have pointed to this species being highly sensitive to climate change and suggest that it may be on the verge of a large-scale population collapse. My graduate work was motivated by a desire to bring research, collaboration, and conservation horticulture to the forefront of our work at the Botanic Garden of Smith College. My work with M. fraseri has led to intensive involvedment in the Global Conservaiton Consortium for Magnolia and ongoing research to accurately characterize range-wide in situ trends for this species.