West Virginia University Locale: West Virginia Study: The Root of Sustainability: Understanding and Implementing medicinal plant conservation strategies in the face of land-use change in Appalachia.
Medicinal plants are economically and socially important plants throughout Appalachia. Due to unethical harvesting and human-caused habitat loss, these plants are becoming increasingly rare. Ms. Turner seeks to understand whether or not reintroduced ginseng and goldenseal will survive and grow on mined lands, as compared to land that was previously used for agriculture and a mature forest.
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Anna Johnson
“Anise Hyssop”
University of Maryland Baltimore County (MD) Locale: Maryland Study: Novel Urban Plant Communities: Causes and Consequences of Diversity
Ms. Johnson is an urban ecologist whose research involves looking at vacant lots in Baltimore and trying to understand what the combination of human and natural processes are that create the plant communities we see. Her research looks to explore how restoring the diversity of the regional pool of possible species interacts with variation in local environmental conditions caused by legacies of human land-use. Her work will help to inform future urban restoration efforts.
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Chelsie Romulo
“Jerusalem Artichoke”
George Mason University (VA) Locale: Peru Study: Working to conserve and sustainably mange the ecologically, culturally, and economically important palm tree Mauritia flexuosa (aguaje) in the Peruvian Amazon.
The aguaje palm tree covers approximately 10% of the Peruvian Amazon. Its fruit supports many different animal species in the Amazon rainforest. The fruit is harvested from the wild and sold in the city of Iquitos. Using satellite images from the NASA Landsat program, Ms. Romulo’s dissertation research proposes to produce recommendations for the conservation and sustainable management of this threatened palm and the forest.
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Stephen J. Murphy
“Teaberry/Wintergreen”
The Ohio State University (OH) Locale: Pennsylvania Study: Forest landscape change in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Mr. Murphy seeks to resample a subset of the forested landscape of southwestern Pennsylvania in order to increase understanding and change the misconception that forests are static entities, remaining relatively unchanged through time unless subjected to a severe disturbance such as fire or logging. Understanding this dynamic nature of forests is extremely important for predicting how they will look in the future.
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Aurelie Jacquet
“Red Clover”
Purdue University (IN) Locale: Nepal, United States Study: Neuroprotective effects of Nepalese and Native American traditional medicine on Parkinson’s disease models.
The natural and social diversity of Nepal and the United States represents a great opportunity to research a wide range of traditional medical treatments. Ms. Jacquet focuses her research on the discovering whether the plants used in Nepalese and Native American traditional medicine have a high potential to alleviate neuron death and changes in brain cells associated with Parkinson’s Disease. Her study is designed to meet the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goal #1: “Eradicate poverty and hunger,” by initiating new discussions in the field of public health policy, and the preservation of traditional practices.
