Botany graduate student awarded NSF Fellowship

Monday, April 30, 2012

Botany graduate student awarded NSF Fellowship

AJ Harris, an OSU doctoral plant science student from Graham, N.C., has been awarded a National Science Foundation Summer Fellowship to travel to China for eight weeks to examine plant specimens and conduct field and laboratory work. She will be collaborating with Professor Chengxin Fu at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. 

Harris’s research is focused on understanding the evolutionary relationships among the plant species commonly known as buckeyes, using tools of molecular systematics to understand patterns of species diversifications and biogeographic patterns.  This trip will enable her to collect the species that occur only in China and contribute to a greater understanding of the assemblage of the North Temperate forests in North America and Eurasia.

Harris was awarded the Fellowship through the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Program.  The NSF-EAPSI Fellowship provides a stipend and travel allowance directly to the student, with housing and research expenses provided to the host institution.

Harris’s dissertation advisor is Dr. Linda Watson, professor of botany. The Botany Department at OSU offers an M.S. in Botany degree and the Ph.D. in Plant Science degree.