The current COVID19 pandemic has greatly impacted the daily lives of the Specht lab members. But in these uncertain times we have some much needed good news to share!
Clarice Guan has been awarded a 2020 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! This NSF GRFP award will support Clarice in their endeavors to study the mysteries of phyllotaxy using the enigmatic genus Costus as a model lineage.
In addition, undergraduates Aaliyah Holliday and Jason Rose have both been named as recipients of a 2020 Botanical Society of America Undergraduate Research Awards! Aaliyah was funded for computational resources to expand her collection of inflorescence morphology across the Monocots in project code name: Monocot Empire. While Jason will being a new line of inquire exploring Liliales inflorescence morphology. You can see their names in lights on the BSA website here and read more about the Undergraduate Student Research Awards and their goals for promoting undergraduate excellence in research here.
We congratulate the awardees and are excited to follow their new discoveries!