Meet the organizers
Dr. Sula Vanderplank
Sula is a botanist who has studied the flora of Baja California (Mexico) for 17 years and has a Ph.D. in Plant Ecology from the University of California, Riverside. She maintains an active cross-border research program focused on islands and coastal ecosystems, and has published more than 50 scholarly articles and books. She is the director of the Center for Environmental Studies (CEMA - Centro de Estudios del Medio Ambiente) in Loreto, Baja California Sur. Sula serves as adjunct Faculty at San Diego State University and the Center for scientific research and higher learning (CICESE) in Ensenada, Baja California, and is a co-organizer of the binational border bioblitz with the Next Generation of Sonoran Desert Researchers.
She is an associate professor at San Diego State University who studies phylogenetics, population genetics, evolution of reproductive systems, and the evolutionary ecology of plant-insect-microbe interactions under climate change.
Using greenhouse experiments, common garden studies, field experiments and next generation sequencing technologies, she studies the genetic and environmental contributions to drought resistance in plants and the interplay between the responses of different plant genotypes and species and their associated microbes and insects to the stresses of climate change.
In her research she combines phylogenetics, molecular genetics, epigenetics, population genetics, physiological, morphological, developmental and ecological approaches.