Our Scientists

All Scientists

About Our Arboretum Scientists

With state-of-the-art research and growth facilities nestled alongside over 16,000 living specimens (2,100 species), the Arnold Arboretum is uniquely positioned to ask broad and important questions in plant biology. Our scientists’ research is as diverse as our living collection, ranging from organismic and evolutionary biology, molecular and developmental biology, plant physiology, and ecological, environmental and biodiversity studies. Emphasizing our close relationship to the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB), many of our scientists have dual appointments in OEB and the Arboretum.

Faculty Fellows of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University contribute significantly to one or more of five areas central to the mission of the Arnold Arboretum:

1. Leading or collaborating on research based at the Arboretum
2. Mentoring students and postdoctoral fellows based at the Arboretum
3. Teaching Harvard courses based at the Arboretum
4. Providing input on living or archival collections and landscape management
5. Creating outreach programs to share science and other scholarship with the public at the Arboretum.

Alaina Bisson

Graduate Student, OEB, Taylor Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

The Arboretum is home to diverse nitrogen-fixing legume species originating from around the world. Alaina Bisson will sample the root nodules from 100 trees with known origins in the Arboretum. She will sequence and identify the nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacterial communities associated with these trees and determine if the location of origin impacts the community composition.

Benton Taylor

Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Benton Taylor focuses on how plants respond-to and influence their environments, particularly in view of global change. Although the primary focus of the Taylor lab is at the ecosystem scale, the research questions require viewing plants at individual as well as community scales toward a better understanding of the role of plants in global processes.

Calvin Heslop

Graduate Student, OEB, Taylor Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Calvin Heslop is a graduate student in the Taylor Lab. He is an ecosystem ecologist interested in the biotic and abiotic controls on nutrient cycling in terrestrial environments. His research focuses on how the N fixing shrub Siberian alder influences community composition, N cycling, and C balance in arctic Alaska.

Carina Berlingeri

Graduate Student, OEB, Taylor Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Carina Berlingeri is a graduate student in the Taylor Lab. She is engaged in several projects studying how different global change drivers (nutrient pollution, disturbance, and rising CO₂) alter belowground symbioses and plant resource-acquisition strategies.

Christina Steinecke

Graduate Student, OEB, Hopkins Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Christina Steinecke is an evolutionary biologist broadly interested in major evolutionary transitions in plants and the conditions that produce them. More specifically, she is interested in identifying the unique forces that drive the enormous diversity in plant reproductive strategies. In the Hopkins lab, she is working to elucidate the causes and consequences of hybridization, polyploidy, and contrasting life history strategies in Texan Phlox species.

Daniel Faccini

Graduate Student, OEB, Friedman Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Daniel is a graduate student in the Friedman lab. Fascinated with the morphological evolution of plants, he is interested in studying plants from an organismal perspective, integrating the developmental, morphological, biogeographical, and ecological patterns to understand how the extraordinary diversity of plant forms has come to be. His research focuses on plant genera of the Canary Islands.

Elena Kramer

Bussey Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard College Professor
Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

A professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. The Kramer Lab is interested in the evolution of plant developmental genetics with a particular focus on floral evolution.

Eve Farrell

Graduate Student, OEB, Taylor Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Eve Farrell is a graduate student in the Taylor Lab who is interested in how mycorrhizal association type and global change shape both local plant-fungal interactions and broader biogeochemical processes.

Faye Rosin

Director of Research Facilitation
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

The research interests of Faye Rosin bear on investigating how gene expression is regulated and the consequences of that regulation at the molecular, cellular, and developmental levels.

Felix Wu

Postdoctoral Fellow, OEB, Hopkins Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Felix Wu is broadly interested in understanding the mechanistic basis of evolutionary processes—in particular, mutation and speciation—as well as the differential impact of these processes across the tree of life. In the Hopkins lab, he is researching the history of hybridization between three species of Texas annual Phlox and developing genomic tools to help us answer these questions.

Gabe Effiong

Graduate Student, OEB, Hopkins Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Gabe Effiong is an aspiring evolutionary biologist who’s fascinated with the diversity of form in flowering plants. He’s worked on a range of taxa including Mimulus, Cupressaceae, and Drosophila species. As a graduate student in the Hopkins Lab, he is focusing on holistically understanding selective mechanisms driving floral trait divergence, as well as morphological responses to polyploidy and hybridization events in closely related angiosperms.

Lauren Jaeger

Research Assistant, OEB, Taylor Lab

Lindsey Adams

Research Assistant, Friedman Lab and Weld Hill Labs
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Michael Dosmann

2000-2002 Putnam Fellow
Keeper of Living Collections
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

As a Putnam Fellow, Michael Dosmann studied the taxonomy of katsura trees (Cercidiphyllum), the reproductive biology of a rare monkshood, the efficacy of plant exploration efforts, and helped coordinate plant selection and sequence for the Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden. Michael returned to the Arboretum in 2007 and is now the keeper of living collections where he guides the Arboretum’s stewardship and development of its collection of temperate woody species. His work explores new strategies and tactics aimed at improving collections management and enhancing the use of Arboretum collections for research. Additionally, he conducts research on the physiological ecology of woody plants and participates in floristic efforts through domestic and foreign plant exploration.

Michael LaScaleia

2024 Putnam Fellow

Michael LaScaleia is an invasion ecologist investigating the physical and chemical defenses that allow invasive plants to avoid damage from herbivores. His dissertation at the University of Connecticut focused on the differential densities of insect herbivores feeding on native and exotic plant species and how feeding on exotic plants may make those insects more vulnerable to predation. Michael works in temperate New England forests, and hopes his research will unlock new methods to combat invasive plant species in this system.

My Trinh

Graduate Student, OEB, Friedman Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

N. Michele Holbrook

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry
Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

The Holbrook lab focuses on how the transport of water and solutes through the vascular system influences ecological, evolutionary and physiological processes.

Nikhil Chari

Graduate Student, OEB, Taylor Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Nikhil Chari, graduate student in the Taylor Lab, is a biogeochemist interested in carbon and nutrient cycling governing terrestrial ecosystems. His focus is currently on the effects of elevated CO2 on root-soil interactions and soil carbon dynamics.

Patrick McKenzie

Postdoctoral Fellow, OEB, Hopkins Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Peter Del Tredici

Senior Research Scientist Emeritus
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

The research interests of Peter Del Tredici are wide ranging and mainly involve the interaction between woody plants and their environment. Recently, his investigations have expanded to include studies of spontaneous urban vegetation.

Robin Hopkins

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Robin Hopkins is interested in natural selection and the process of speciation. The Hopkins lab studies color variation in Phlox with a growing focus on reproductive incompatibility between emerging species and understanding the key evolutionary forces at work.

Valeria Schmidt

Graduate Student, OEB, Hopkins Lab
Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Val joined the Extavour lab through the OEB graduate training program with an interest in understanding how the immediate abiotic environment and biotic interactions drive an organism’s phenotype, ecological patterning, and evolutionary processes through the interaction of genetics, and epigenetics. After starting her PhD in the Extavour lab based on her initial interest in incorporating developmental biology into her view of evolution, she soon realized that her interests lay more in adaptation and speciation genomics. She thus transferred to the lab of Robin Hopkins, where she continues to pursue her PhD studies.

William (Ned) Friedman

Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Ned Friedman is interested in the organismic interfaces between developmental, phylogenetic, and evolutionary biology. The Friedman lab explores how patterns of morphology, anatomy, and reproductive biology have evolved through the modification of developmental processes.