Anna Groves, a PhD candidate in Michigan State University’s Department of Plant Biology, has been awarded the ASPB/AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship for 2018. Anna will spend 10 weeks this summer training and practicing science journalism with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Anna graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a B.A. in environmental studies in 2011, with concentrations in ecology and environmental policy. A love of plants and native ecosystems brought her to Michigan State for her graduate studies, during which time she has won numerous awards, including a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Fields Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the Ecological Society of America’s Graduate Student Policy Award.
During her graduate program, Anna discovered the immense value in communicating science to diverse audiences. She started the blog Plant//People, gave pop science talks in her community, taught biology to non-majors, and met with her representatives in Washington DC. She now hopes to take her strong science background into a career that strives to increase public support of and interest in the sciences.
She will defend her dissertation later this month, earning a dual degree with MSU’s Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior for her work on tallgrass prairie restoration. She is a community ecologist in Lars Brudvig’s lab, focusing her work on the use of community assembly theories to inform ecological restoration in practice.
Anna is absolutely thrilled for this opportunity to expand her science communication skills in the Journal Sentinel newsroom and thanks ASPB for its support!