Education

B.A. - Biology and Psychology, 1993: Degree with Distinction, Magna Cum Laude. University of Delaware,Newark, DE.

M.S. - Biology, 1997: New York University; New York, NY.

Doctoral Candidate – Biology, expected graduation 2003: New York University, New York, NY. Joint Program with NYU Department of Biology, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)
 
 

Recent Grants, Honors and Awards

2002 NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant ($8,500)

2002 Botanical Society of America John Sidney Karling Award honoring outstanding scholarship for the advancement of knowledge in the botanical sciences ($500.00)

2000 Selected for Membership - NYU Graduate Forum ($2,000)

1997 - 1998 J. William Fulbright Research Fellowship ($10,000)

1997 State Garden Clubs of America, Inc. Cornelia H. Kellogg Award for research in Botanical sciences, National recipient ($5,000.00)

1996 NYU Graduate School for Arts and Sciences Pre-dissertation Research Award ($5,500.00)

1996 NYBG Botanical Graduate Research Award ($2,500.00)

1996 NSF Graduate Fellowship (Predoctorate) Honorable Mention

1995 - 2000 National Science Foundation GRT Fellowship for Graduate Research, NYU

1993 Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society Induction

1993 Outstanding Senior Biology Major Award of Merit, University of Delaware

1993 Alumni Merit Award
 
 

Research and Training

2001 – 2003   Research Associate, Monocot systematics project. NYBG: Research focused on the continuing development of
            morphological and molecular matrices for a combined phylogenetic analysis of the Monocots, carried out in collaboration with
            Dr. Jerry Davis (Cornell) and Dr. Dennis Stevenson (NYBG).

2001    Ecoregion Conservation Coordinator, World Wildlife Fund: Develop Biodiversity Vision for the Amazon River and Flooded
            Forests Ecoregion with Brazil and Peru conservation teams.

2001    Teaching Assistant, Vertebrate Anatomy: NYU

2001    Ecoregional Coordinator, Southwest Amazon, World Wildlife Fund: Manage conservation budget and develop a landscape-level
            conservation plan for the Southwest Amazon Ecoregion Complex with Bolivia, Brazil and Peru conservation teams.

1998    Visiting Instructor, Taxonomía y Systemáticas de las plantas. Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

1997    Research Assistant, Monocot Systematics Project. New York Botanical Garden and American Museum of Natural History.

  Project involved initiating a phylogenetic analysis of the monocotyledons using three molecular data sets. Collaborations with
  Dr. Jerry   Davis (Cornell), Dr. Dennis Stevenson (NYBG) and Dr. Rob DeSalle (AMNH).

1996    Herbarium Assitant, New York Botanical Garden.

1996    Ethnobotanical Research Coordinator. New York Botanical Garden. Traveled for one month to Bolivia in order to study the
            medicinal use of plants by the Chacobo indigenous group of the Beni Department. Financing provided by competitive grant
            from NYU and project development funds from NYBG.

1993 – 1995 Research Technician. Pharmacology Department, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, MD.

1991 – 1993 Summer Research Intern. DuPont-Merck Pharmaceuticals, Wilmington, DE.

1991 – 1993 Undergraduate Research Assistant. Department of Biology, University of Delaware.

1993 Teaching Assistant, Genetics. University of Delaware.
 
 

Collection Experience

2002 Queensland, Australia. Collection of Tapeinochilos (1 week)

2002 Hawai´i. Collection of Costaceae material.

2001 Hawai´i. Collection of worldwide Costaceae from Lyon and Waimea arboreta.

2001 India. Collection of Zingiberaceae in southern tropical forests.

2001 Costa Rica. Focus on Dimerocostus for population/biogeography study (1 week)

2001 San Martín, Perú. In search of Monocostus (1 week)

2000 Puerto Rico. (4 days)

1999 Perú. (1 month)

1998 Bolivia. Collecting for Environmental Impact Assessment (6 weeks)

1997 - 1999 Bolivia (17 months: Includes various multi-disciplinary expeditions)

1996 Puerto Rico. Dry Forest Caribbean Biogeography (2 weeks)

1996 Bolivia. Ethnobotanical collections

1995 Belize. Course in Tropical Botany (2 weeks)
 
 

Relevant Publications

Specht, C.D. and Stevenson, D.W. 2002. Easy Trees? - Review of "Phylogenetic trees made easy: a how-to manual for molecular biologists" by Barry Hall. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution in press.

Specht, C.D., Kress, W.J., Stevenson, D.W., and DeSalle, R. 2001. A Molecular Phylogeny of Costaceae (Zingiberales). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 31(3):333-345.

Stevenson, D.W., Davis, J.D., Freudenstein, J.V., Hardy, C.R., Simmons, M.P., and Specht, C.D. 2000. A Phylogenetic analysis of the Monocotyledons based on Morphological and Molecular character sets, with comments on the placement of Acoris and Hydetellaceae. Monocots: Systematics and Evolution. Eds K.L. Wilson and D.A. Morrison. CSIRO:Melbourne.

Specht, C.D. 2000. Ecoregional-Based Conservation for the Southwestern Amazon Moist forests: A biodiversity vision. World Wildlife Fund.

Lim, J., Heliarutta, Y., Specht, C.D., Jung, J., Sims, L., Bruce, W.B., Diehn, S., and Benfey, P.N. 2000. Molecular Analysis of the SCARECROW Gene in Maize Reveals a Common Basis for Radial Patterning in Diverse Meristems. The Plant Cell 12:1307-1318.

Specht, C.D. and Caffrey, P. 1999. Manejo Sostenible de Recursos y Conservación de la Biodiversidad. BOLFOR 17: 1-3.

Goldstein, Paul Z. and Specht, C.D. 1997. Pitfalls in phylogenetic analysis of Large Molecular Data. In Molecular Ecology and Evolution, B. Schierwater et al. (eds.) Berlin: Birkhauser Verlag.

In Preparation

Specht, C.D. and Stevenson, D.W. "The contribution of floral morphology to the understanding of phylogenetic relationships in the Costaceae" in prep.

Specht, C.D., Stevenson, D.W., and Kress, W.J. "The effects of combining data on phylogenetic hypothesis: the case of Costaceae" in prep.

Abstracts and Presentations (Total = 15, 2001-present shown)

Specht, C.D. "Species level phylogenetics in the monocot family Costaceae: rapid radiation and floral evolution" Presentation at the conference "Plant species-level systematics: patterns, processes and new applications." 2002. Leiden, The Netherlands.

Specht, C.D. and Stevenson, D.W. "Untangling complex characters: the use of combined morphological and molecular analysis to determine relationships in the Costaceae" Botany2002 Abstracts, American Journal of Botany Madison, Wisconsin.

Specht, C.D. and Stevenson, D.W. "Systematics and floral evolution of Costaceae (Zingiberales)." Botany2001 Abstracts, American Journal of Botany 2001. Albuquerque, NM.

Davis, J.D., Stevenson, D.W., Campbell, L., Goldman, D., Hardy, C., Michelangeli, F., Simmons, M.P., and Specht, C.D. "Phylogenetic relationships among the monocots as inferred from morphology and nucleotide sequence variation in three genes." Botany2001 Abstracts American Journal of Botany, 2001. Albuquerque, NM.

Specht, C.D. "Combined data analysis aids in interpreting the systematic relationships in a family of tropical monocots undergoing rapid molecular and morphological evolution." Presentation at the Willi Hennig Society, 2001. Corvallis, OR.

Specht, C.D. "A Molecular Phylogeny of Costaceae (Zingiberales): implications on floral evolution and tropical biogeography." Presentation at the meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology, 2001. Bangalore, India.

Specht, C.D., Powell, G.W., Riveros, J.C., Ferriera, L., Lemos, R., Vasquez, P., Cavalier, J. "Conservation planning for a species-rich, data-poor landscape" Presentation at the meetings of the Society for Conservation Biology, 2001. Hilo, HI.
 
 

Invited Talks

2002 "Biodiversity Vision for the Amazon River and Flooded Forest ecoregion" presentation for LAC Subcommittee Meeting, WWF-US.

2001 "Notes from the Field" presentation for NYBG Patrons Council

2001 "Recent Advances and Progress in Botanical Research" presentation for Botanical Science Council, NYBG.

2001 "The role of genomics in plant systematics" presentation for high school teachers summer workshop in genomics sponsored by Princeton University and the AMNH.

2001 "Plant phylogenomics" presentation for Uniondale (Long Island) high school students course in scientific research.

1999 "Ecoregional Planning in the South American Tropics" presentation for Subcommittee Meeting, WWF US.

1998 "Biogeografía de la familia tropical Costaceae" presentation for the Sociedad Botánica de Bolivia.
 
 

Participation in Academic/Scientific Community

NYU Graduate Forum – a group of graduate students nominated by NYU faculty and selected by the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science to participate in monthly discussions on a variety of topics, selected by the forum members to reflect our interests in research and academia and expand our epistemological views beyond those specifically related to our areas research.

American Society of Plant Taxonomy

 Botanical Society of America

 Society of Systematic Biologists

 Society for Conservation Biology

 The Torrey Botanical Society

 The Willi Hennig Society

 The Commelinid Monocots Working Group