Science Internship Enrichment Calendar, Summer 2020
Behind the scenes tours of NYBG’s facilities and discussions of research programs.
Wed June 10, 1:00pm
Tour of the World of Plants galleries in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, led by Dr. Dennis Wm. Stevenson, Vice President for Science and Cullman Senior Curator
Meet at the Conservatory main entrance
As Charles Darwin famously recognized, the evolution of living things has been occurring for billions of years and is responsible for the marvelous diversity of life on Earth. Dr. Stevenson discusses evolution as a problem-solving process resulting in change over time, explains the Botanical Garden’s research on understanding plant portions of the evolutionary Tree of Life, and examines representative plants on the evolutionary tree and their problem-solving characters.
Wed June 17, 1:00pm
Tour of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, led by Nicole Tarnowsky, Assistant Director of the Herbarium, and of the Digital Imaging Lab, led by Kimberly Watson, Herbarium Digital Asset Manager
Meet in the Britton Rotunda
The Steere Herbarium is one of the largest in the world, with over 7 million collections representing much of the Earth’s diversity of all plant groups—flowering plants, conifers, ferns, mosses, liverworts, as well as fungi, lichens, and algae. It is particularly strong in New World specimens. As a leader in the revolution to make information about biodiversity widely available, the Digital Imaging Lab is imaging the millions of specimens held in the Steere Herbarium.
Wed June 24, 1:00pm
Tour of the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, led by Dr. Barbara Ambrose, Director of Laboratory Research and Associate Curator of Genomics
Meet in the Pfizer Lab lobby
Laboratory research at the Garden complements traditional field, herbarium, and literature research about plants. Its several goals include understanding how plants grow, develop, and function at their most essential levels; contributing to the global scientific effort to assemble the evolutionary Tree of Life for all plants; and, on the applied side, developing the field of DNA barcoding, in which small, standardized fragments of DNA are used as a species identification tag.
Wed July 1, 1:00pm
Tour of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, led by Stephen Sinon, William B. O’Connor Curator of Special Collections, Research and Archives, and Esther Jackson, Public Services Librarian, Mertz Library, and Dr. Andrew Henderson, Abess Curator of Palms, Institute of Systematic Botany
Meet in the Mertz Library
Accurate prior knowledge about plants is an essential scaffold on which to build new ideas and understanding. The Garden’s Mertz Library, founded in 1899, is one of the largest, most comprehensive stores of botanical knowledge in the world. It is home to over one million accessioned items, including books — from centuries past up to the present — journals, original art and illustrations, photographs, and scientific reprints. The professional Mertz Library staff is there to help anyone doing research in the Library, through the Internet or in person.
Wed July 8, 12:30pm
Brown Bag Luncheon/Discussion on The Importance of Field Exploration, hosted by Dr. Douglas C. Daly, B. A. Krukoff Curator of Amazonian Botany and Director, Institute of Systematic Botany
Meet in the Pfizer Research Laboratory, Cullman Conference Room
NYBG is one of the few botanical gardens with a sustained network of active field research. Since 1891, Garden scientists have undertaken more than 1,100 expeditions around the world. They discover diversity in order to understand the world around us, develop effective conservation plans and priorities, and evaluate progress. They involve local people in understanding and valuing their ecosystems. And Garden scientists inform selection of protected areas for biodiversity and management of those areas.
Please bring your own lunch.
Wed July 15, 12:30pm
Brown Bag Luncheon/Discussion on NYBG’s Legacy of Floristic Research in the Northeast and How to Make a Flora, hosted by Dr. Robert F. C. Naczi, Arthur J. Cronquist Curator of North American Botany, Institute of Systematic Botany
Meet in the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, Cullman Conference Room
NYBG has a long and rich tradition of exploration, documentation, and understanding of the plants of the Northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. Major research efforts continue today on the identification, geographic distribution, frequency, ecology, and conservation of plants growing wild in this area ― and on the publication of these critical study results for interested stakeholders.
Please bring your own lunch.
Wed July 22, 10:30am until dusk
The 8th Annual, NYC Area, Green Industry Intern Field Day (Hootie Hoopla at the Garden)
Full information on the Intern Field Day, including guest speakers, to follow. Science interns will be able to attend any part of the Field Day their schedules allow. Registration will be required.
Wed July 29, 12:30pm
Brown Bag Luncheon/Discussion on Systematics and its Relation to Conservation, hosted by Dr. Brian M. Boom, Vice President for Conservation Strategy and Bassett Maguire Curator of Botany
Meet in the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, Cullman Conference Room
Systematists at the Garden study the origins, patterns, and classification of biological diversity. Their expertise — ranging from fungi, lichens, algae and mosses, to ferns and flowering plants — and the data their research and collections generate, provide a critical basis to inform conservation practices. Using a new protocol, systematic collections data analyzed in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab is providing rapid conservation assessments of plant groups from targeted areas.
Please bring your own lunch.
Wed August 5, 12:30pm
Brown Bag Luncheon/Tutorial on How to Talk About Your Research, Advance Preparation for the Intern Symposium, hosted by Dr. Lawrence M. Kelly, Associate Vice President for Science Administration and Director of Graduate Studies
Meet in the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, Cullman Conference Room
Gain valuable skills to aid your career and learn how to give a great research talk: what your talk is for; what to (and not to) put in it; and how to present it. This tutorial is also excellent preparation for the Intern Symposium on Weds August 12, in which participants present for 10 minutes — singly, or in groups — on their summer projects. Format for presentations is wide open. Examples from past years include PowerPoint demonstrations, speaking with or without props, and videos.
Wed Aug 12, 1:00pm
Science Intern Symposium. Hosted by Dr. Brian M. Boom, Vice President for Conservation Strategy and Bassett Maguire Curator of Botany
Meet in the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, Cullman Conference Room
The annual Intern Symposium provides interns an opportunity to present on their summer projects in as setting similar to scientific meeting. The audience is fellow interns, intern mentors, and other interested Science staff. Interns need not have a finished project/results to report on, though this is one possibility. Other possibilities could be presenting on the progress of an internship project, to date, or, if near the beginning of an internship, presenting on an internship plan of work.