Eight seniors receive Young Botanist Awards

Eight senior botany majors from Miami University received the Young Botanist Award, Special Certificate of Achievement, from the Botanical Society of America.

Caitlin Bregitzer, Alicia Campbell, Peter Frank, Alex Harkess, Jillian Hertzberg, Katharine Huntoon, Hannah Philippsen and Evan Rose are among the 37 students from 25 institutions selected for the award, which recognizes outstanding graduating seniors in the plant sciences.

More Miami botany students have won recognition by the BSA for the Young Botanist Award than any other department in the country, according to the department of botany. In the past 12 years, they have received 33 of the 244 Young Botanist Award Certificates of Special Achievement.

Recipients, nominated by faculty at their universities, are selected based on academic performance, involvement in research, leadership, and interest and potential for a career in botany.

Bregitzer and Huntoon, botany and clinical laboratory science double majors, were mentored by John Kiss, professor and chair of botany; Campbell, now a graduate student at Miami, was mentored by Carolyn Keiffer, professor of botany, Miami Middletown; Frank, a botany and geographic information science double major, and Hertzberg, a botany and Latin American studies double major, were mentored by Dave Gorchov, professor of botany; Harkess was mentored by Richard Moore, associate professor of botany; Philippsen was mentored by Roger Meicenheimer, professor of botany; and Rose was mentored by Nancy Smith-Huerta, associate professor of botany.