“UMBC has allowed me the flexibility to engage with the broader non-academic community and conduct interdisciplinary research by being supportive of non-traditional projects, such as my work with Maryland prison sustainability efforts.”
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Anna Johnson
Plans: NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology, University of Pittsburgh
Ph.D., Geography and Environmental Systems
Magna Cum Laude
Hometown: Orrtanna, PennsylvaniaOver the course of her graduate studies at UMBC, Anna has combined her love of gardening with her research interests to have a lasting impact through improving Baltimore’s urban environment and serving an important–and often overlooked—population. As an active participant in the Maryland Green Prisons Initiative, Anna worked with inmates at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women to understand how different plants interact with weeds in vacant lots to improve urban ecology. She has received significant recognition and support for her work as an NSF IGERT Trainee through the UMBC Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education and as a Phipps Botany-in-Action Fellow. She received a Maryland Native Plant Society Research Grant award and served as the Baltimore Ecosystem Study graduate student representative. During her two-year NSF post-doctoral fellowship in biology, she will use herbarium specimens to reconstruct historic plant-pollinator interaction networks, mentored by Dr. Tia-Lynn Ashman at the University of Pittsburgh.