I grew up on the shores of Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota and spent many happy hours exploring the woods near our home. Both my parents were biologists, and their enthusiasm for nature and science was contagious. At Carleton College, I was inspired by charismatic botanist William H. Muir ‘s emphasis on non-flowering plants. At the…
I was born in Youngstown, Ohio and grew up in rural Indiana. When I was a teenager, my family packed into our car and drove across the middle of the United States on a memorable vacation to St. Louis, Missouri. We went up in the Gateway Arch, took in a baseball game, and visited the…
I grew up in the city of Vila Nova de Gaia, located south of the city of Porto, in the North of Portugal. Although living in a city, I grew up with a lot of contact and sense of respect for nature, raised mainly by my grandparents and my parents who often took me and…
Nature has always been a safe and magical place, full of possible discoveries for me. The smallest organisms allowed the most unexpected discoveries and the plants were the permanent element of my life growing up on a farm. I grew up without really knowing what I wanted to be “when I grew up”. At secondary…
I am a mosser. Known to most folks as Mossin’ Annie, I have been fascinated with mosses since childhood. Today, my life’s passion is advocating and promoting bryophytes (mosses) as viable horticultural choices in today’s landscapes. I wear many hats — moss rescuer, small business owner of a Mossery (moss nursery) and online Moss Shop,…
Part-time scientific staff Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama)Retired Professor, Department of Botany, University of Panama I was borne in a small town (San Francisco) on the outskirts of Panama City. As such there were trees around the house, a large backyard where my grandmother had rabbits, chickens, and turkeys. It was like living in the…
My passion for bryology started on quite an unusual path. I was born in a small village in the east of France. As a child, I was already very close to nature; I enjoyed observing the little ferns and mosses on the old walls along the river. After my high school final exam, I worked…
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and spent a lot of my childhood outdoors, always noticing small things. ?I actually wanted to be an entomologist, and started volunteering in the entomology collections at the Natural History Museum of Utah starting at age 14. I continued to be interested in entomology, and it wasn’t…
I was born in the Gippsland country town of Bairnsdale in the state of Victoria, close to my mother’s hometown. Growing up, my siblings and I spent every school holiday on my grandparent’s farm, playing in the garden, helping with the animals, picnicking in the local countryside. I do remember that one of Christmas gift…
I am a lecturer in the Department of Botany at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. I was born on 8 April 1970 in Trang, a small town located on the western side of the Buntad Mountain in southern Thailand. When I was young, I would look to the mountains and wonder about the life forms…