Profile
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Rebecca Yahr
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About Me:
An intricate pattern of intricate patterns – lichens on rock.
I am a lover of fungi and plants and being outdoors, pondering what everything is and why there is so much diversity in life. I have been lucky to find jobs that let me be doing just that.
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I live in Edinburgh and have a tiny garden to grow vegetables; every spring I wait with bated breath to see if the seeds I plant germinate, and every year, I get ridiculously excited when they do. I feel perennially guilty that I haven’t identified all the lichens growing on the paving stones nearby… I am proud to be a muddy-boots naturalist, but wish I knew more bird calls than I do. I miss the USA terribly and its huge, wide-open spaces and wildnernesses, and one day want to take my UK family on a road trip to experience some of that — including a warm ocean to swim in!
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I am lucky that in my work I get to do research, teach and – hopefully! – inspire people, and do my small part to use my knowledge to help nature conservation. My research is focused on the diversity of lichens – fungi that live in cooperation with their own food source that they grow inside their bodies (algae, usually). Some of the quetions I have tried to answer include: Who are those algae inside lichens? How do the fungi inside lichens evolve and can we identify them just by their looks? How far do lichens travel when they reproduce? A typical research project involves going to a lichen-rich place – think mountains or rainforests in the UK (yes, we do have rainforests in the UK, and they are amazing!) – learning the lichens there and where the special ones grow, making some collections, and bringing these back to use microscopy, sequencing and other DNA-type tools for identifying them, either to species or even to gene-pool. I almost always get to work with really clever people to build on my own skills, so I learn a lot from them, which is great. One of my favourite projects was collecting and identifying lichens from old roofs – from before the Industrial Revolution, to see how lichen communities and climate has changed over time.
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My Typical Day:
There is no typical day! A great day would be a day looking through my hand lens – a magnifying glass I wear around my neck, as I need it all the time. Lichens are small and beautiful, and you never know what you will spot when you stop and look. Usually, I collect lichens to bring back to the lab so I can find out more about them.
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My job is incredibly varied. I might be in a classroom teaching about fungi or lichens, I might be running a meeting from my computer about lichen conservation, or I might be outside finding out what lichens live in a special woodland or an city park. I live for days in ‘the field’, when I put on warm clothes and tough boots, climb a mountain or explore a forest, and get to spend hours looking at all the tiny things that are all around us but often not seen. Usually, when I go to the field, I collect pieces of what I find so that I can bring them home to identify using chemicals or microscopes, or even using their DNA. I feel equally home in a lab or just with a ruler and a clipboard gathering data in the field. Most days, someone will ask me to identify something they found for them, and I enjoy helping with those queries.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
If a local primary could get a set of 30 macro-lens attachments for their iPads, each student would have a view of nature they never had before. Sometimes seeing something for yourself, for the first time, is the most inspiring thing. What questions would they come up with?
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Education:
• Marist School, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• BSc University of California, Davis, California, USA
• PhD Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA -
Qualifications:
At high school, I took all the advanced math and science classes I could, so I could leapfrog straight into university science with an advantage.
• Bachelor of Science – Botany and Biology: I went to a big University with every sort of class you could imagine, and I’m glad I did: I didn’t even know about botany as a discipline until I took my first course in it. I got a job being a botanist the following year!
• PhD – BIology and Genetics: Having a good grounding in math, chemistry and biology set me up to be able to understand labwork, an essential part of modern biology and a really interesting part of understanding how life works, down to the details of DNA.
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Work History:
• Field botanist
• Research Assistant, California Native Plant Society
• Field botanist, US Forest Service
• Lab Tech: California State Veterinary Diagnostic Lab
• Intern: Archbold BIological Station, Florida, Plant Ecology Lab
• Research Assistant: Archbold BIological Station, Florida, Plant Ecology Lab
• Postdoc: University of St Andrews
• Postdoc: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh -
Current Job:
Lichen Biodiversity Scientist, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
Something about protecting the earth -- I wasn't sure quite what.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Well, we did mess around with chemicals we probably shouldn't have, but our teacher thought that was a good sign of engagement.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Depends on the day. Looper was up there for a while. I always like listening to John Hartford.
What's your favourite food?
Nacho chips, with guacamole, sour cream and homemade salsa.
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To be able to relax into now; to write that intro book on lichens; to be more patient with people.
Tell us a joke.
What are caterpillars afraid of? (wait for it.........................................................)Dogerpillars.
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