XVIII International Botany Congress Meeting

I had a wonderful time at the international botany congress meeting in Melbourne, Australia! At IBC 2011, I saw a wide variety of intriguing talks and posters, went to a nomenclature meeting, reconnected with colleagues, and met new people. I gave an oral presentation (accepted through a peer-review process) at the congress. I hope I am able to attend the next congress in Shenzhen, China in 2017...















One of the many signs in the Melbourne Convention Centre, the conference venue.

There were four publications of a congress newspaper that are fun reading for those of you interested in some of the highlights of the meeting. The below newspaper clippings give you a taste... Please email me if you want any more details on what I personally saw and did. I would love to share more with you!

Some newspaper clippings:

Gardening at Hawaii home

Glimpse of adventures in Hilo

Free museum that was enjoyable. One of the funding sources of this center is NOAA. I was horrified to see the plastic-filled bird (see below). This is not OK! We humans need to be more careful with our planet and its organisms.




The market is an interesting place, and has cheap, local produce.




Public library= bliss. I love books!

Botanizing and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

I joined colleagues I met at the Ecosystems conference for weekend excursions that involved botany, natural history, taxonomy, and ecology in forest reserves and at Volcanoes National Park. I felt really spoiled! Karl - an insect taxonomist - was awesome and let me stay at his place in Hilo during this fun filled weekend.

Aside: I am getting used to living out of my backpack and sleeping on others scientists' couches! My place is a 2.5 hour walk and bus ride combo from Hilo, so it is convenient to stay with other scientists from time to time. I am also frequently carpooling given that the Hele-On transit here is far from rapid...

Day 1: Mostly Botanizing

Definitely at home with all the plants!

Looking for rare plants, and native snails

Shoes are over-rated according to Musuri!

Pasture before the forest: root beer smelling plant found here!


Day 2: Volcanoes National Park

Practicing being a Hobit...

I was safe...honestly...

The nene looks like a Canadian Goose...

Wandering around the Kipuka...

More photos later! Stay tuned...

June 30 - July 1st Hawaii Ecosystem Conference

The Hawaii Ecosystem meeting, which is often called the "Vitousek" meeting (Peter Vitousek lurks here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/Vitousek/), was a diverse collection of talks from students, professors, and government agencies. It was wonderful to be included in this conference. I especially enjoyed the 5 minute talk by Tad Fukami (http://www.stanford.edu/~fukamit/)on Kipuka community ecology work.

I had the pleasure of presenting a 5 minute oral presentation at this meeting. I was told by many people that I did a great job. I did a whirlwind presentation on my MSc. work, and made time to squeeze in a "do you need a research or Ph. D student" advertisement at the end; I am on the next leg of my journey through academia...starting to think about future research projects and questions. See the talk below in the meeting agenda:



The meeting also had break out groups to address projects. In addition to briefly joining a community ecology session, I spent time talking with others about science outreach. The picture below is of students and professionals talking about communicating science to non-scientists and working with multiple stake holders to address concerns such as environmental conservation.

Some photos of where I work - again words will venture over later!

Some photos of where I live now - words to describe images to meander their way over soon...