Discovering Curiosity: Uncovering the Hidden World of Plants with Jennifer Gremer
Assistant Professor Jennifer Gremer showed an interest in plant life at an early age, but her path to scientific research wasn’t straightforward. She dabbled in many fields related to plant sciences before joining the Department of Evolution and Ecology, from working as an interpretive ranger in Yosemite National Park to performing botanical surveys for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
“When I think about my path to becoming an assistant professor at UC Davis, it makes a lot more sense in hindsight than it did moving forward,” said Gremer. “There were a lot of these branching points but I just kept getting pulled back to scientific research.”
These experiences sowed the seeds for Gremer’s current research into how climate change influences the life history of wildflowers. Recently, she was awarded a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study jewelflowers, a diverse group of California wildflowers spread across the state. She and her co-principal investigators are working to unify past and present data to predict how jewelflower species will react to future climate conditions.