The Art & Science of Botanical Collections

Name: The Art & Science of Botanical Collections
Start: 2026-05-24T14:00:00-05:00
Location: University of Minnesota Duluth

Schedule

Sun, 24 May, 2026 at 02:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

University of Minnesota Duluth | Duluth, MN

The Art & Science of Botanical Collections
When: Sunday, May 24, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Where: Olga Lakela Herbarium, University of Minnesota Duluth
https://scse.d.umn.edu/departments-and-programs/biology-department/facilities-affiliates/olga-lakela-herbarium/about
Who: Master Naturalists and their friends
Please RSVP so that we can plan space according to attendance numbers: https://forms.gle/79uQno7mCDYi83pm9

Join us for a tour of the Olga Lakela Herbarium at the University of Minnesota Duluth, led by Herbarium Director, Dr. Amanda Grusz. The tour will include a discussion of the resources that we offer, as well as an introductory botanical illustration workshop led by Deli Heal, who is a botanical illustrator and a student in the Integrated Biosciences Graduate Program at UMN-D.

Dr. Amanda Grusz is an associate professor of biology and the director of the Olga Lakela Herbarium at UMN Duluth; she is also a research associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Amanda earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (2006), followed by a Ph.D. in Biology from Duke University (2014). Amanda served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian before joining the Department of Biology at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2016. Throughout her career, Grusz has been a strong advocate for biodiversity collections.

Deli Heal is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota Duluth studying Integrated Biosciences. Deli earned a B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Vermont (2025), where they also worked in the Pringle Herbarium as a botanical illustrator. Deli's illustrations have been used in the publication of new plant species. For their master's research, Deli is studying the evolutionary history of cliff ferns (Woodsia), and is leveraging the genus to study whether botanical illustration enhances learning and retention for difficult to identify species and hybrids.