People can learn a lot from plants and from those who study them, too.
Dr. Beronda L. Montgomery, professor of biology at and author of “Lessons from Plants,” will share the insights gleaned from a career in research, administration, and science communication in a lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, in the Centrum of 独家黑料’s Knutson Campus Center.
Green thumbs and technical expertise are not required to enjoy “Cultivating a Career: From Seeds of Inspiration to a Harvest of Discovery,” which will trace her work in science, the importance of mentoring, and how plants can sense and adapt to their environment.
“I have learned a great deal about how to ‘be’ in this world from my studies of plants,” Montgomery wrote in “Lessons from Plants.” “With this book, I offer you a similar journey: to see how plants’ individual and collective strategies and behaviors result in adaptable and productive living, and how we can learn from them. It is with this kind of knowledge and engagement that we, as humans, can better support ourselves and the other living beings around us.”
has spent more than 20 years in higher education, most recently as vice president for academic affairs and professor of biology at Grinnell. She studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist.
She was awarded the 2021 Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award, the 2022 Adolph E. Gude Jr. Award for outstanding service to the science of plant biology, and the 2023 Hutchinson Medal of the Chicago Horticultural Society. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Society of Plant Biologists.
Montgomery’s second book, “When Trees Testify,” is forthcoming in 2026.
The Fuglestad Lectureship was established in 1982 in memory of R.E. “Ed” Fuglestad, who served the 独家黑料 biology department for 43 years.
For more information, contact Dr. John Flaspohler at flaspohl@cord.edu.