Emily V. Moran
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dear National Science Foundation,
I would like to express my sincere thanks for the opportunity NSF funding has provided me to participate in the 2004 Research Training Program. This program is a wonderful chance for undergraduates such as myself to take part in research experiences at a world class museum with distinguished scientists in a variety of fields. The Research Training Program is unique in its combination of depth of experience, gained through a particular focused research project, with a broad view of the museum as a whole, obtained through a program of lectures, discussions, and collections tours. The experiences of seeing specimens of thylacines and coelocanths, and of holding a meteorite or burgess shale fossil, are things I will remember for the rest of my life.
For ten weeks, I worked in the department of Botany under the direction of Dr. Vicki Funk. My project involved a morphological revision of the genus Erato (Asteraceae, tribe Liabeae). Using the fine collection of specimens in the US National Herbarium, I wrote descriptions of the genus and the four previously known species, and developed a key, distribution maps, and a morphological cladogram. In the process we described a new species. The paper derived from my research this summer will soon be submitted as a monograph to the journal, Systematic Botany. It will be my first scientific publication.
This project gave me the opportunity to experience research in plant systematics, a field which had interested me for some time but with which I had had little experience. Through my work here I got to see every stage of systematics research, from field collection to publication. I have also made connections with peers and future colleagues, and have learned many new skills, from picking characters for cladistic analysis to GIS mapping, which will surely prove useful to me in the future. My time at NMNH has helped me clarify my interests in botany. It has given me new insights into the field and into possible research directions to pursue in graduate school. Thank you once again.
Sincerely,
Emily V. Moran
Research Training Program
Class of '04