People

I'm a plant evolutionary biologist with a particular interest in floral form and genome evolution. I like moving between close observation of plants and computational work: finding ways to assemble genomes, represent three-dimensional shape, and use those structures to ask evolutionary questions.

Living things have fascinated me since childhood, from tadpoles in a ditch to the plants that filled our balcony. Studying plant diversity in Yunnan turned that curiosity into a career. I love the immersion of fieldwork and the deeper understanding that comes from working through the data. I did my doctoral research at the Kunming Institute of Botany and later moved to Columbia for postdoctoral work before joining NYBG.

Plants also find their way into my life through food. I've tasted more than 50 apple varieties, and I'm still counting how many plant families I've eaten. I'm a marathon runner, and these days I spend more of my free time running than coding, which used to be a hobby. I also enjoy birding, with more enthusiasm than expertise.