Barbara Ambrose is a

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

working in the field of Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology (

Evo-Devo Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biological research that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolved. The field grew from 19th-century beginni ...

). As the Director of Laboratory Research at the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

, Ambrose is a prolific scholar and leader and mentor in her field who is interested in patterns in plant diversity on macro and micro scales.

Education

Ambrose earned a Ph.D. in

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in June 2000, starting her career as a developmental geneticist working on

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

(

Zea mays Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

)

flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

. She also holds a B.Sc. in

from

University of the Virgin Islands The University of the Virgin Islands (or UVI) is a public historically black land-grant university in the United States Virgin Islands. History UVI was founded as the College of the Virgin Islands on March 16, 1962. In 1986, it officially beca ...

, St. Thomas which she earned in 1994. One of Ambrose's Ph.D. articles ''Molecular and genetic analyses of the Silky1 gene reveal conservation in floral organ specification between eudicots and monocots'', published in

Molecular Cell ''Molecular Cell'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers research on cell biology at the molecular level, with an emphasis on new mechanistic insights. It was established in 1997 and is published two times per month. Its 2021 impact ...

was one of the first Plant

papers, and has been cited nearly 500 times, as per

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

metrics.

Career

National Autonomous University of Mexico

Ambrose began her career first as a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

International Postdoctoral fellow (2000-2002) and then as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2002–2003) at the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

(UNAM) in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. During this time, her work was also focused on floral

evo-devo Evolutionary developmental biology (informally, evo-devo) is a field of biological research that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to infer how developmental processes evolved. The field grew from 19th-century beginni ...

in ''

Lacandonia schismatica ''Lacandonia schismatica'' is a species of mycoheterotrophic plant in the Triuridaceae (although some taxonomists place the genus in a separate family; the Lacandonaceae.). It is endemic to Lacandon Jungle in the State of Chiapas in southern Mexi ...

'', a

monocot Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of ...

with inside-out

Massey University

Ambrose was next a Lecturer in the Institute of Molecular BioScience (IMBS) at

Massey University Massey University ( mi, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa) is a university based in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with significant campuses in Albany and Wellington. Massey University has approximately 30,883 students, 13,796 of whom are extramural or ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

from October 2003 until August 2008, where here research focused on the control of plant development at the molecular level, including

research related to

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

. At Massey, Ambrose was involved in the planning of the Manawatu Microscopy & Imaging Centre (MMIC). She also developed a course in

Plant Development Important structures in plant development are buds, shoots, roots, leaves, and flowers; plants produce these tissues and structures throughout their life from meristems located at the tips of organs, or between mature tissues. Thus, a living plant a ...

and worked on a project with Plant Biology and Massey gardening staff to label plants in the living collection, making this collection more accessible.

City University of New York

Since 2008, Ambrose has been an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

for the

Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the C ...

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

(CUNY) in the Plant Science subprogram where she has taught courses on

and Comparative

Morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

Vascular Plants Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

New York Botanical Garden

Ambrose has worked at the

since 2008. Hired as an Assistant Curator in the Plant Genomics department in 2008, she was promoted to Associate Curator in 2014. In 2017, Ambrose was named Director of Laboratory Research. Ambrose's research interest is in Plant Evolutionary Developmental Genomics with research foci in

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

as it relates to

Molecular Biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

and

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

as they relate to

Gene Expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

Gene Regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wide ...

and

Genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

/Development. Her

research has continued to expand into work with

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

and

seeds A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm pl ...

, using the latest scientific techniques to understand the evolution of morphological novelties. Recent projects also include the use of

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

to identify

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

specimens through

kaggle Kaggle, a subsidiary of Google LLC, is an online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners. Kaggle allows users to find and publish data sets, explore and build models in a web-based data-science environment, work with othe ...

competitions, notably in 2019 and 2020.

Current research projects

* Evolution and Development in Lycophytes and Ferns * Fruit Evolution and Development * Transforming ''Selaginella Apoda'' Into a Major Model Species * ''Elaphoglossum'' – the deer tongue ferns

Scientific outreach

In addition to her academic work, Ambrose is very active in scientific outreach activities in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, through

CUNY , mottoeng = The education of free people is the hope of Mankind , budget = $3.6 billion , established = , type = Public university system , chancellor = Fél ...

, NYBG, and other local organizations including Cooper Hewitt.

Selected works and publications

Publications

* B.A. Ambrose and A. Vasco (2016) Bringing the multicellular fern meristem into focus. ''New Phytologist'' 210: 790-793. * Ambrose, B.A. (2010) MADS-Box Genes in Plant Evolution and Development. ''International Journal of Plant Developmental Biology'' 4: 30-37. * B.A. Ambrose, S. Espinosa-Matías, S. Vázquez-Santana, F. Vergara-Silva, E. Martínez, J. Márquez-Guzmán and E. Alvarez-Buylla. (2006) Comparative developmental series of the Mexican triurids support a euanthial interpretation for the unusual reproductive axes of ''Lacandonia schismatica'' (Triuridaceae). ''Am. J. Bot.'' 93: 15-35. * B.A. Ambrose and K. Prasad. MADS about Plant Development. (2004) NZ Bioscience (August) 8-13. * B.A. Ambrose, D.R. Lerner, P. Ciceri, C.M. Padilla, M.F. Yanofsky, and R.J. Schmidt (2000) Molecular and genetic analyses of the Silky1 gene reveal conservation in floral organ specification between eudicots and monocots. ''Molecular Cell'' 5: 569-579.

Books

*Barbara A. Ambrose and Michael D. Purugganan, Editors. 2013. ‘The Evolution of Plant Form’ Annual Plant Reviews 45. Wiley-Blackwell, London. *Barbara A. Ambrose. 2013. ''The Morphology and Development of Lycophytes'' in ‘The Evolution of Plant Form’ B.A. Ambrose and M.D. Purugganan (Eds.) Annual Plant Reviews 45. Wiley-Blackwell, London. *Barbara A. Ambrose and Cristina Ferrandiz. 2013. ''Development and the Evolution of Form'' in ‘The Evolution of Plant Form’ B.A. Ambrose and M.D. Purugganan (Eds.) Annual Plant Reviews 45. Wiley-Blackwell, London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ambrose, Barbara 21st-century American botanists American women botanists Living people University of California, San Diego alumni University of the Virgin Islands alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women scientists Developmental biologists Women evolutionary biologists Genomics American molecular biologists American evolutionary biologists