We’re excited to host many individuals from our local communities who regularly visit the Biodiversity Museum as Community Research volunteers. A list of these persons, and their research activities, is provided below.
If you are potentially interested in such a volunteer research experience, either on-campus or virtually, please contact Dr. Hedin.
Lisa Marun. At the Biodiversity Museum, Lisa helps engage and empower the SDSU community—and beyond—to make an impact as community scientists and to be effective environmental stewards. She’s the San Diego County City Nature Challenge co-organizer lead for the Museum (in partnership with the San Diego Natural History Museum) and she assists with other biodiversity conservation and outreach efforts.
Maelstrom Lee
Kyla White volunteers in the Herpetology and Mammal collections. They work to maintain the herpetology collection and organize information for the mammal collection. Kyla graduated from SDSU in 2020, but is now pursuing a B.S. in Zoology from Oregon State University with an interest in working in collections. In their free time, they engage in wildlife photography, tide pooling and exploring the outdoors.
Veronica Torres-Salazar, a Spring 2025 SDSU graduate, volunteers in the Arthropod Collection and is currently working on digital imaging and online digitization of spider specimens. She is interested in working with collections and further exploring insect–plant interactions in agriculture. She’s currently taking a short break from her studies, but plans to apply to graduate school in the near future.
Lydia Duran graduated from SDSU in the spring of 2025. She volunteered in the Arthropod Collection, identifying and imaging specimens of spiders in the genus Yorima. She is interested in plants and arthropods and ultimately wants to study plant-insect interactions.
Ana Laura de Wallau John is studying the taxonomy of Cryptantha hendersonii (Boraginaceae). Ana is annotating hundreds of specimens, investigating variation in vegetative and fruit morphology in this poorly understood species, which often confused with the common (and phylogenetically distant) Cryptantha intermedia. She will be investigating the possible recognition of taxa generally subsumed as synonyms of C. hendersonii, including the rare C. scabrella. Ana has already discovered the first documented occurrences of C. hendersonii on a serpentine substrate (California’s state rock), a substrate that most plants cannot tolerate and which is the habitat for a very high number rare and endemic plant species.
Andria Califf, assistant curator of the SDSU Herbarium, is also working on a taxonomic research project, the floral forms of Johnstonella angustifolia (Boraginaceae). This very common desert annual appears to have two forms (often growing sympatrically) that differ in corolla size. This had been noticed by taxonomists in the past but never studied in detail. From quantitative morphometric studies, Andria will be assessing whether these two forms are distinct enough in both corolla size and fruit morphology to warrant separate taxonomic status. In addition, Andria is conducting breeding studies of this species to determine in part if the two corolla forms breed true and will be studying germination studies of the species, all of which have heteromorphic fruits (differing in size, with one large and three small propagules within the fruit).
Nuri Benet-Pierce, Research Associate in the SDSU Herbarium, continues to study the taxonomy of the North American members of the genus Chenopodium (the genus including the economically important quinoa). Nuri has to date discovered and named 13 new species, with several more new to science in progress. Nuri has collected hundreds of specimens of Chenopodium and visited herbaria around the world to better understand this poorly understood plant group.