Priscila Chaverri is unapologetic about her passion for fungi.
“What I like the most is going out to the field. I got interested in this (subject) through going out in the forest and looking for these little fungi,” says Chaverri, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture (PSLA). “It’s so relaxing and I don’t think about anything else. I just go into the forest and spend hours collecting the fungi. I love the fungi.”
This spring, Chaverri found out she will be awarded the 2013 Alexopoulos Prize from the Mycological Society of America (MSA), considered the premier award for early career stage researchers in mycology – the study of fungi. She will travel to Austin, Texas in August to accept the award in person at the MSA’s annual meeting.
Here at the University of Maryland, Chaverri aims to pass on her enthusiasm for fungi to the next generation. She teaches a 100-level course available to students in all majors called Mushrooms and Molds, as well as the advanced PSLA class Biology of Fungi.
“We go out and we collect and I tell them all the fun stories about fungi. I think the students enjoy that,” she says.
Chaverri also helps teach a winter term study abroad course called Sustainable Tropical Ecosystems in Costa Rica, her native country. She frequently travels to Central and South America, as well as other regions around the world, for her research which primarily focuses on identifying fungi that cause diseases on plants or those which can be used to control diseases as an alternative to pesticides. One specific project, which involves two UMD graduate students, centers on the rubber tree native to the Amazon Basin and its potential to produce fungi that could protect against devastating plant diseases such as South American Leaf Blight.
Chaverri joined the PSLA faculty in 2008. For more information on her research, visit http://mycology.umd.edu
