1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?
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 The organisms I work on are Ascomycetes (the sac fungi), the largest known group of fungi worldwide. They occur in all ecosystems and geographical areas and many are small and inconspicuous, living as parasites or saprobes (decomposers) on plant and plant products.
I specifically study two large groups within the Ascomycetes—pyrenomycetes and loculoascomycetes—fungi that form an enclosed, often flask-shaped fruiting structure and not a cup-like one. For the past 11 years my research interests have focused on monographic and floristic (mycobiotic) work on saprobic, wood inhabiting pyrenomycetes and loculoascomycetes.
Some of the research questions that I am interested in are: What are the relationships among these fungi? What characters or features are important indicators of relatedness? Where are these fungi distributed spatially in the forest and geographically in the Neotropics? What is their diversity in tropical forests?
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2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?
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My work involves the microscopic examination and assessment of dry, herbarium specimens along with laboratory in vitro culture studies of fresh specimens to determine growth and reproductive characteristics.
Both stereo and compound microscopes are used to gather morphological data such as measurements and descriptive information about specific characters. Images are captured using a video or digital system and stored electronically on the computer. Molecular data is obtained from DNA samples extracted from the fungi. To understand the relationships among these fungi, I use morphological and molecular data to produce phylogenies.
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3. Where do you study biodiversity?
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My floristic work is focused in Central America, the Caribbean, and in French Guiana. In general, Ascomycetes are not well-known and have not been widely collected from many tropical habitats. Areas like the tropical, lowland, rainforest in Saül, French Guiana, the Caribbean National Forest in Puerto Rico and several conservation areas in Costa Rica offer the possibility to survey and inventory the Ascomycete mycota and ask questions about biology, ecology, distribution and host specificity. These projects involve an active fieldwork program as well as laboratory studies.
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4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?
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 It is difficult to make accurate statements about the biogeography, endemism, species richness, or diversity of tropical fungi without detailed knowledge of specific study areas. Until this information is available for tropical areas, fungi will not be included in discussions on biodiversity, in spite of their extreme importance in the tropical forest ecosystem.
The surveys that I am doing will serve as models for assessing Ascomycete biodiversity in tropical forests and ultimately, the information on fungal biodiversity will lead to a manual for identifying tropical Ascomycetes. With this type of information available, Ascomycetes can be included in discussions of biological conservation.
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5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?
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From an early age I was always interested in the science of collecting and categorizing found objects. I became seriously interested in science when I was an undergraduate working summers as a volunteer at The Morton Arboretum. I worked for a plant pathologist who gave me projects involving identification of woody plant pathogens and this was where I learned about Ascomycete fungi. This person became a mentor and he encouraged me to go to graduate school and become a scientist. After finishing my Ph.D., I worked for several years identifying and describing fungi at the New York Botanical Garden and the USDA Forest Service in Madison, Wisconsin before coming to the Field Museum in 1996.
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