Go Botany! Engaging Budding Botanists Using Technology

Elizabeth Farnsworth is Senior Research Ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society (NEWFS), and a biologist, educator, and scientific illustrator. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the botanical journal, Rhodora. She previously coordinated NEWFS planning for the conservation and management of over 100 species of rare plants.

She is the principal investigator on Go Botany!, which is funded by the National Science Foundation:

She has illustrated the forthcoming Flora of New England for NEWFS and the Natural Communities of New Hampshire with the NH Natural Heritage Bureau, and is currently illustrating and co-writing The Ants of New England (Yale University Press). She is co-author of the Connecticut River Boating Guide: Source to Sea and the Peterson Field Guide to the Ferns.

She is a member of the graduate faculties of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Rhode Island, a Master Teacher at the Conway School of Landscape Design, and has taught at Smith College and Hampshire College. She formerly served as Ecologist with the Connecticut Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

She has conducted scientific research on many ecosystems throughout the world, focusing on restoration, conservation, and climate change. She was awarded a Bullard Research Fellowship by Harvard University in 2005 and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1999. She has been a scientific consultant to the National Park Service, The Trustees of Reservations, U. S. Forest Service, Massachusetts and Connecticut Natural Heritage Programs, United Nations, and the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust. She obtained her Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University, M. Sc. from the University of Vermont, and a B.A. with honors in Environmental Studies from Brown University.