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Naomi began volunteering at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2014 after working as an elementary school teacher and office manager. Since joining the Echinacea Project in 2014, Naomi has cleaned numerous Echinacea heads counted over 20,000 achenes! She appreciates the quiet lab work and the chance to learn about plant conservation. Outside of the lab, Naomi enjoys knitting, gardening, and spending time with her grandchildren.
This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
After teaching middle school science in New York, Lois moved to the Chicago area and began volunteering with the Chicago Botanic Garden. Since joining the Echinacea Project in 2009, Lois (aka “the Achene Queen”) has counted over 430,000 achenes! Before teaching the United States, Lois received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach science in Burma and, after her stay in Burma, she traveled around the world writing for the Junior Scholastic Magazine. She has visited over 70 different countries!
This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Following a career in finance, Kathryn decided to pursue her long-time interest in gardening and began volunteering with the Chicago Botanic Garden. She started working in the outdoor gardens but soon switched to the research department in hopes of learning more about plants and plant science. Since joining the Echinacea Project in 2008, Kathryn has become a jack of all trades. She helps clean Echinacea heads and has counted over 150,000 achenes! Kathryn’s favorite pastimes are gardening and knitting.
This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Shortly after retiring from her career as a program manager with the National Opinion Research Center, Suzanne took a course on native prairie plants at the Chicago Botanic Garden and began volunteering at the Garden. She initially worked to restore the Garden’s prairies before joining the Echinacea Project in the early 2000s. In the lab, Suzanne is usually busy cleaning Echinacea heads or preparing achenes for weighing and X-raying. She enjoys gardening and volunteers with a bird rescue organization as well as the Butterfly Monitoring Network in her spare time.
This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Following her tenure as an elementary school teacher and tutor, Char decided to pursue her lifelong interest in the natural world and began volunteering at the Chicago Botanic Garden in the early 1990s. Before joining the Echinacea Project, she worked to restore the Botanic Garden’s prairies and woodlands. Char specializes in cleaning Echinacea heads and has been a member of our dedicated volunteer team since 2001. Aside from her work with the Echinacea Project, Char has been monitoring butterflies at the Chicago Botanic Garden for the past 20 years in association with the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network.
This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
The Echinacea Project relies on a team of volunteers to process the Echinacea heads collected from experimental plots and remnants. Each year, these citizen scientists devote more than 2000 person hours to cleaning, sorting, weighing, and counting Echinacea heads and achenes! We are fortunate to have such dedicated individuals working with us and we would like to recognize their contributions to the Echinacea Project, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and conservation science. Next week we will begin posting citizen scientist profiles on the Echinacea Project blog to give our volunteers some of the recognition they deserve. Stay tuned!
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