Inclusive mentorship in STEM research
I am committed to inclusive mentorship in science research. My institution, the University of Texas Permian Basin, has an undergraduate student population that is majority-Hispanic/Latino and majority-first generation college students, and traditionally has limited research opportunities for undergraduates compared to larger, more research-intensive institutions. To involve undergraduates in research, I design certain projects so that they can include as many undergraduate students as are interested in getting a taste of research. My lab’s ongoing pollination ecology studies at the I-20 Preserve in Midland (which has involved 15 undergraduate co-authors, 13 of whom took part in fieldwork) and at Monahans Sandhills State Park (five undergraduate co-authors so far) exemplify this approach. The I-20 Preserve pollination network study is led by undergraduate researcher Evelyn Guerrero, and was selected to represent UTPB at Texas Undergraduate Research Day 2023 at the Capitol in Austin.
I also actively mentor students in my lab through the application process to NSF REUs and other paid summer undergraduate research opportunities. To date since 2022, six UTPB undergraduate students (Sarai Badillo, Evelyn Guerrero, Morgan Hernandez, Jenny Hunt, Chelsea Rodriguez, and Jose Zapata) have been taken part in or been accepted to REUs, NIH internships, or equivalent opportunities at the University of Iowa, University of Arizona, University of Texas at Austin, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Missouri Botanical Garden, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. I also incorporate information about REUs into my undergraduate courses and invite undergraduate alumni to speak to their peers about their experiences (at least one additional UTPB student has been accepted into an REU as a result of this outreach). As far my departmental colleagues and I can ascertain, the four students accepted into REUs in 2022 are the first students from UTPB ever accepted into REU programs.
In 2023 I took a group of six UTPB undergraduates to the Evolution 2023 meeting in Albuquerque with support from NSF, the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society for the Study of Evolution. To the best of my knowledge these are the first UTPB students ever to attend the Evolution meetings. The success of these above activities has been generously recognized with a grant from NSF’s BRC-BIO program, which will support future research opportunities for undergraduate and master’s students in the lab during the period 2023-26.
Field biology and outreach in Texas and the southwestern United States
Much of my current field research takes place in Texas and/or the southwestern United States and I am actively communicating the findings of my research to interested management and lay audiences in communities where I do this fieldwork. At present, our primary outreach is active engagement with the I-20 Wildlife Preserve in Midland as part of our ongoing pollination network study there. Past outreach activities have included outreach talks to the Arizona Native Plant Society annual meeting and letters to Las Cruces, New Mexico newspapers (Las Cruces Bulletin and Las Cruces Sun-News) concerning the importance for scientific research of the neighboring Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
Conservation of endemic biodiversity in Polynesia
My work on endemic radiations of oceanic island plants and their pollinators has strong conservation implications. Glochidion are actually one of the largest endemic plant radiations in southeastern Polynesia. A number of species are threatened and endangered (IUCN France et al., 2015), and three are legally protected in French Polynesia for this reason.
Despite being an important part of the botanical heritage of Southeastern Polynesia and probably highly suitable for ecological restoration, Glochidion have been notoriously difficult for morphological taxonomists. My work has revealed several unrecognized taxa from the southern Cook and Austral islands (Hembry, unpublished data), and a likely insect extinction from a remote island (Hembry 2013). My ongoing research gathers information about pollination ecology and the genetic status of described taxa that will be essential for the conservation of this endemic diversity. Accordingly, I collaborate actively with government and private sector conservation biologists in French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, and Fiji. I’ve given outreach talks about my work in American Samoa and French Polynesia (the latter in French), and my research has been featured in local media (Tahiti Nui TV, La Dépêche de Tahiti, Cook Island News, and EBM Fiji Newsletter). I was also a consultant for the 2015 edition of the IUCN France Red List for the endemic vascular flora of French Polynesia.
The Hembry Lab 