Spotlight talk: Plants on islands. Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Autumn 2023. Fun and interactive presentation highlighting my PhD research at the Naturalis Museum. Making plants interesting and accessible to a general audience ranging in age from 9 years old to 99! The spotlight talk was bi-lingual in English and Dutch. [Naturalis Spotlight]

Young Liveable Planet, invited speaker. Leiden University. Summer 2023. Gave a lecture and led a workshop on interdisciplinary research needed for combating the biodiversity crisis to the Young Liveable Planet community - a network of ECRs who collaborate to tackle global sustainability problems. [Event] [YLP]

Dit is Evolutie (This is Evolution), educational workshop. Naturalis Biodiversity Center. 2022. Contributed content to an educational workshop that introduces the process of evolution to secondary students (14-15 years) [Workshop]

Ynés Mexía: Mexican-American Botanist and Trailblazer by Lizzie Roeble. Capitulum. 2021. Popular science article highlighting the life and work of Ynés Mexía, an inspirational female botanist who traveled across North and South America collecting over 140,000 herbarium specimens. [Article]

Natuurlab - Island Evolution, interactive educational tool. Naturalis Biodiversity Center. 2021. Developed educational content for the Island Evolution lesson in Natuurlab, an online learning and research environment for Dutch students. [Natuurlab]

Queer Botany, botanical consultant & collaborator. London, UK. 2021.  Collaborated on designing a tour with a series of outdoor interpretive displays that tell stories about plants from LGBTQ+ perspectives at the Walthamstow Marshes, in northeast London. [Queer Botany]

Creative Writing and Climate Workshop, invited speaker.  Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT, Lisbon) x Its Freezing in LA (IFLA). 2020. Invited speaker in the Writing for a Substantially Altered World workshop series that explores the intersection of creative writing and climate change. Presented a talk titled "Islands: hotspots of biodiversity and environmental change" and led a workshop on integrating science into creative writing. [Workshop]

Education Coordinator. Conservatory of Flowers (San Francisco). 2016-2017. My first paid botany job! I coordinated and led an informal science education workshop series that connected the public to the Conservatory’s tropical plant collection. [Consevatory of Flowers]

Teaching and mentoring students are some of the most rewarding and favorite aspects of my work. 

Lecturing

Introduction to R for Biodiversity Research. University of Hawai‘i, BSc course. 2025. Designed and led a 2-week workshop for undergraduates in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). Students learned the basics of coding in R, including data cleaning, visualization, and mapping using real botanical datasets such as herbarium specimen records.

Plant Families of the Tropics. Leiden University, MSc course. 2023. Teaching assistant on the MSc tropical botany course based at the Hortus Botanicus Leiden. Gave lectures and co-led the daily lab sessions where students learned to identify plants from herbarium specimens and living collections. 

Scales of Biodiversity: Island section. Leiden University, BSc course. 2022. Gave two lectures on island ecology, evolution, and biogeography. Co-led a practical where students took a current topic in island biogeography, made a conference poster, and practiced presenting. 

Flora and Fauna. Leiden University, BSc course. 2022. Teaching assistant on the general field training in biodiversity course, where I helped students learn to use the Dutch flora keys and identify plants. 

Urban Agriculture Minor. University of San Francisco. 2012-2014. Teaching assistant (TA) for five semesters of the Urban Agriculture course in the Urban Agriculture Department. Through this work, I developed my love of teaching botany and ecology. As a teaching assistant, I was involved in all aspects of the course: developing lesson plans prior to the start of each semester, delivering half of the weekly lectures, leading the hands-on lab portion of the class, grading homework and tests, supervising field trips, and acting as a mentor for students in and outside class.

Supervision 

Co-supervised the following internship and thesis students with Luis Valente:

5. Stephanie Koster. MSc, Leiden University. 2023

4. Nina Kerdiles. BSc and MSc, Leiden University. 2022, 2024

3. Qiong Wu. MSc, Wageningen University. 2021

2. Bart Burger. MSc, Wageningen University. 2021

1. Linde Wieringa. BS, University of Groningen. 2020

Sonoma State University Biology Colloquium. Sonoma, California. 2025. Invited colloquium presentation: "Island Biogeography of the Largest Plant Family"

International Botanical Congress. Madrid, Spain. 2024. Invited symposium presentation: "Great speciators of the plant world: Island biogeography of Asteraceae on Hawaii and the Mascarenes"

International Biogeography Society Conference. Prague, Czechia. 2024. Poster: "Great speciators of the plant world: Island biogeography of Hawaiian Asteraceae"

Society of Island Biology Conference. Lipari, Italy. 2023. Presentation: "Daisies in isolation: Diversity and island biogeography of the largest plant family"

• Awarded Best Oral Presentation 

Naturalis Biodiversity Center Colloquium. Leiden, Netherlands. 2022. Presentation: "Asteraceae in isolation: Island biogeography of the largest plant family"

International Biogeography Society Early Career Conference. Amsterdam, Netherlands (Online). 2021. Presentation: "Diversity and biogeography of one of the most diverse plant families on islands: Asteraceae"

Flora Malesiana Symposia. Brunei. 2019. Poster: "Identifying and mapping Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) in Indonesian New Guinea"

Young Systematists Forum. London, United Kingdom. 2018. Poster: "Modelling the vulnerability of endemic montane flora to climate change in the Australian Wet Tropics"

TICA Talks Co-Organizer. Monthly virtual symposium of all things Compositae. 2025. [TICA Talks]

Associate Editor for Capitulum. Micro-journal / newsletter of The International Compositae Alliance. 2021-Current [Capitulum]

Naturalis Diversity and Inclusion (Naturalis Inclusief) Committee member. 2020-2021

Naturalis PhD Council member. 2020-2022

Graduate Student Research Award. 2024. Grant ($3,000) from the Society of Systematic Biologists to support my PhD research on the systematics of Asteraceae on islands. 

Alberta Mennega Stichting Grant. 2024. Funding (€1,200) to participate and present my PhD research at the International Biogeography Society Conference. 

Best Oral Presentation Award. 2023. Island Biology Conference in Lipari, Italy. 

Annie's Sustainable Agriculture Scholarship. 2013. Funding scholarship that supported my undergraduate degree in urban agriculture and food justice at the University of San Francisco.