Abigail Jane Moore
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Dear National Science Foundation,
I would like to thank you for giving me an opportunity to spend 10 weeks
at the National Museum of Natural History with the Research Training Program
this summer. I am a student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where
I am majoring in biology. I am particularly interested in botany, especially
systematic botany. I enjoy learning about all plants, but the family I am
the most interested in is Asteraceae, the sunflower family. I had done some
research with the Asteraceae at the University of Utah involving two genera
that are native to the western United States, but I did not have access to
a large herbarium or library and thus was not able to get a good overview
of the family worldwide. In addition, my mentors at the University of Utah
are not specialists in the Asteraceae, although they are plant systematists.
This summer I had the privilege of working as an intern in the Botany Department
with Dr. Harold Robinson, a plant systematist who specializes in the Asteraceae.
My project involved members of the genus Viguiera, a member of the
Asteraceae. The species I worked with are from the Neotropics, giving me the
experience of working with something I was not familiar with from experience
in the field. I was also able to spend time examining other members of the
Asteraceae that were outside my specific study and with which I was unfamiliar
before.
One of the most valuable parts of this experience for me was the opportunity to talk to many botanists about their specialties and to get different perspectives on what is happening in botany today. My advisor, Dr. Robinson, gave me many insights into the Asteraceae and helped me see what was going on, both figuratively and literally, in a way I could not do before. Figuratively, he told me about important people and problems in the field, both of today and of the past. Literally, he showed me the technique of examining flower parts mounted in Hoyer’s solution under the compound microscope, thus enabling me to see for myself the characters that define the major groups of the family.
Thank you again for giving me this opportunity.
Sincerely,
Abigail J. Moore
Research Training Program, 2003
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