Profile

• Time Zone

  Pacific

  
  
• Organization

  University of California - Riverside

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I am interested in how plants respond to abiotic stress. Specifically, I hope to further dissect the complex and fascinating relationship between plant circadian clocks and temperature stress. I focus mostly on Arabidopsis, but hope to examine rice and other crop plants as well. I examine this question through molecular and genetics techniques with bioinformatics for data analysis.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What lessons have you learned in your career about how science works?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  The most important lesson I've learned so far is that an integral part of science is failure. It's extremely easy to miss a small detail of a complex protocol, which can ruin an experiment. However, it is important to learn from these moments. When this happens to me, I assess the protocol to see where I could have made a mistake, and then alter either my protocol or my technique to allow me to be more successful.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is the coolest thing you have discovered or learned about plants?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  There is a symbiotic relationship between acacia trees and ants that I think is really cool! The acacia tree provides a home for the ants and it produces a nectar that the ants can eat. In response, ants defend the acacia tree from herbivores, like elephants. Basically, if an elephant tries to eat the acacia tree, the ants all attack the elephant until it backs off!!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  I love citrus trees! My parents have an orange tree, a lemon tree, and a lime tree in their yard. The flowers are beautiful, and they smell amazing. The best part is the delicious fruit though; I love lemonade made from freshly picked lemons.

  
  
• Availability

  I am NOT available, please temporarily remove me from the available mentor list

  
  
• In addition to English, I am comfortable communicating with students in the following languages:

  (not set)

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  1

  
  

Recent Posts

2D Tree Peeps Emily Blair Mar 9, 2021

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair, and I'm a PhD student at UC Riverside. I study how plants respond to temperature stress. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking in with all the groups periodically. 

I love…

more

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair, and I'm a PhD student at UC Riverside. I study how plants respond to temperature stress. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking in with all the groups periodically. 

I love the picture and name for your group; super cute! It's great you have already participated in PlantingScience before. You all should know what to expect!

Do you have any questions about getting started? I'm excited to hear what you're thinking about studying! I think one of the coolest things about this project is that you can really be creative and ask basically anything you're interested in. Not sure if you've heard of this, but Da Vinci actually drew and diagrammed plants. By observing plants deeply, he was able to understand a lot about how they work. I think it's a great example of how powerful observation can be in the scientific method! 

camsdavisspring2021 project 41 Emily Blair Mar 9, 2021

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair and I study how plants respond to temperature stress as a PhD student at UC Riverside. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking on all the groups periodically to make sure everyone is…

more

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair and I study how plants respond to temperature stress as a PhD student at UC Riverside. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking on all the groups periodically to make sure everyone is progressing. 

I think your research question sounds really interesting! I want to challenge your group to dig deeper into defining health status and surrounding wildlife. How will you quantify the amount of wildlife near a tree? For example, how would you quantify how much biodiversity/wildlife when a tree has a small patch of moss growing on the trunk versus a large bush growing at the base of the tree? Next, what does tree health mean in the context of your experiment? What tree attributes will you observe? 

Some mentors find it helpful when you post questions or request specific feedback in this update section so feel free to do that as you update the information section!

camsdavisspring2021 project 29 Emily Blair Mar 9, 2021

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair. I'm a PhD student at UC Riverside studying how plants respond to temperature stress. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking in periodically with all the groups.

Your question looks…

more

Hi everyone! I'm Emily Blair. I'm a PhD student at UC Riverside studying how plants respond to temperature stress. I'm also the liaison for this session so I'm checking in periodically with all the groups.

Your question looks really excellent! It's great that you have a specific question. By focusing on one species, I think you'll be able to have a more clear result! My main feedback is how do you measure monetary value/benefits? If you're able to identify a set of metrics that correlate well with monetary value, I think your question lends itself really nicely to an experiment.

Have you considered other types of value from these trees besides monetary? Maybe cultural, ecological, etc.? Again it's great that you're being specific, but this might be something that you consider in your report write-up as a follow-up or even something you might want to investigate before you start the experiment to see if it would be worth following through on!