Michelle Buonopane

Profile: I graduated in 2005 with a Master’s in Botany and Plant Pathology through the Professional Science Master’s degree program in Applied Systematics – Botany. After receiving my Bachelor’s degree in biology from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, I worked with the Maine Nature Conservancy and the Maine Natural Areas Program. As a field ecologist I was able to explore the kettle-hole bogs, salt marshes and hardwood forests of the Northeast. After leaving the Northeast, I worked with the Bureau of Land Management in the Great Basin desert in Nevada and in the Douglas-fir forests of southwest Oregon. I also spent five years managing a research program for the Jornada Basin Long-term Ecological Research Station in the Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico, desperately praying for rain so there would be new plants to study. I left the desert to pursue a Master’s degree in the rainy Northwest. The Applied Systematics program seemed to uniquely fit my need for more technical skills to supplement my professional experience. My Master’s internship involved applying GIS analysis to herbarium georeferenceing. I currently work as a research botanist with the USDA Forest Service in Corvallis, Oregon studying understory vegetation response to prescribed fire and grazing, and the control of invasive weeds in fuel-reduction-management programs.