CC is known for its strong liberal arts education, where students are taught to think critically, express themselves articulately, and share ideas in a way that others can understand. These lessons, combined with CC’s strong science programs, has set Josh Felton ’22 up for a successful career in botany, the scientific study of plants.
“CC was a transformative experience that shaped both my personal and professional growth as a person in the broader society and as an academic,” says Felton, a former Organismal Biology and Ecology major. “Across my 32 blocks, I cultivated creativity in my classes and thought, which I now channel into hobbies like playing guitar and film photography.”
Felton is now a Ph.D. student at Cornell University, where he is working to combat misinformation and address misconceptions about evolution through science communication to the public. Felton has always loved nature and plants and plans to teach botanical sciences at the college level where he can help students experience the joy of nature and plants while also teaching the importance of sustainability. Felton will graduate with a Ph.D. in Plant Biology with concentrations in systematic and molecular biology and population ecology.
While Felton only graduated from CC a few years ago, he has already achieved so much in the field of botany.
Felton was named a 2023 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in Organismal Biology and Ecology and, as a junior and senior, Felton was named a 2021 and 2022 Botanical Society of America PLANTS Scholar, a program for undergraduate students interested in careers within the botany field.
PLANTS Scholars participate in the Botany and Beyond: PLANTS III Pathway Program and are paired with two mentors: a graduate student mentor and an established career professional mentor. The mentors advise the PLANTS scholar on graduate school and internship options, different career paths, and can help the students network within their career goal field.
Felton did a lot of research as a student on campus which helped to prepare him for his research now, which is the species diversification of pineapples. Felton’s thesis at CC was a comparative study on the reproductive biology of two species of Bromeliaceae, a flowering plant in the pineapple family. He investigated how different pollination syndromes and fruit types influenced reproductive effort and if outcrossed flowers invested more biomass into the maturing fruit and created higher seed mass over selfed flowers. He spent over seven months in CC’s greenhouse documenting variation and performing flower crosses.
Felton presented his research at the BOTANY conference, where he also attended a talk on distribution of breeding system in angiosperms, which inspired him to consider basing his doctoral work on the population dynamics and evolution of breeding systems in Bromeliaceae.
Felton did a large part of his research on campus under his advisor Dr. Rachel Jabaily, Associate Professor of Organismal Biology and Ecology, and credits her for a lot of his success as a botanist.
“Josh was such a wonderful student and colleague to me during his time at CC,” Jabaily says. “He was an intuitive, curious botanist who was very hard-working and committed. I’m not at all surprised that he is succeeding in graduate school. It’s really exciting to see how his thesis work there is building upon ideas he developed here at CC, incorporating major new skill sets in bioinformatics and population genetics.”
In addition to the NSF grant, Felton also receives funding as a SUNY Graduate Diversity Fellow during the first and last years of his program. Felton says he is grateful to Jabaily and Dr. Roxaneh Khorsand, Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Ecology, both of whom made the final papers in their Evolution and Advanced Ecology classes, respectively, be written in a GRFP research proposal format, which prepared Felton for writing in that style for his GRFP proposal. Felton says he is also thankful for Dr. Maybellene Gamboa, Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Ecology and recent GRF recipient, who provided many edits during Felton’s countless revisions of the GRFP proposal and application.
“I want to stay in academia and ideally teach plant science and biodiversity genomics at a predominantly undergraduate institution like Colorado College, as while I always loved nature, having strong connections with my professors in OBE is the reason why I am a botanist today. I hope to be a strong mentor in the classroom like my professors Dr. Jabaily, Dr. Khorsand, and Dr. Shane Heschel, and for students who will do research with me.”
Despite his heavy research schedule on campus, Felton made sure to pursue his other interests as well. He was an active member of the Wasabi, CC’s Men’s Frisbee Club Team, and also served as a Chaplain’s Office intern from his sophomore through senior year, where he helped to lead many Shove Council lunch discussions and Block Break retreats to Baca.
“I am forever grateful for Kate Holbrook and Alex Hernandez-Siegel for opening my eyes to mindfulness and other somatic practices,” Felton says of the Chaplain’s Office.
After graduating, Felton stayed at CC for a year and worked as a paraprof in the Organismal Biology and Ecology Department, which he says was an invaluable stepping stone on his academic journey and further inspired him to pursue a career in teaching others.
“This position deepened my appreciation for the faculty and staff in the department and solidified my interest in staying within academia,” he says. “Working closely with all of the professors and students not only enhanced my understanding of teaching but being able to continue research with Rachel also reinforced my desire to pursue a career at a liberal arts institution like CC, where I could combine my passion for teaching and research.”
Felton was named a 2023 Cornell University Graduate School Dean’s Scholar. He says that his research at Cornell in systematics, the study of the diversity and evolutionary relationships of living forms, is especially important in today’s world, with the loss on biodiversity on a regular basis.
In his research at Cornell, Felton is using phylogenies, which is a way to showcase the evolutionary relationship between organisms, species, genes, to better understand how floral and fruit traits have influenced population persistence and species diversification in the pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). Felton says that understanding the evolutionary relationship within the pineapple family has larger implications, as it can identify key adaptive traits and teach botanists about selective pressures, which can help them prioritize the perseveration of species that are crucial to maintaining ecological balance.
Felton is already working towards his goal of sharing his research to the public, as he maintains a blog detailing what he is working on, and he appeared twice on rootbound, a podcast about plants. Felton also runs an Instagram account where he shares information about botany and his research.
Felton says that after most people take high school biology, they often are not in places where they can learn about the biodiversity around them. He hopes to change that with his Instagram account.
“I hope that my science communication Instagram can increase people’s awareness of plants around them so that they can gain a deeper appreciate of the diversity of plant types around them,” he says. “On my Instagram I also try to highlight what it means to be a botanist, so that folks who are in the sphere of academia can gleam insights into what it means to be a scientist. A big theme in most of my posts is that a good scientist is merely just an observant and aware person who asks good questions!”
Felton encourages students interested in the botany field to not be afraid to reach out to anyone whose research is interesting to them. “It is often the case that whoever you are reaching out to will be joyous to geek out about plants,” he added.
Felton says that this past summer, a college student approached him after a panel and wanted to ask him how he got into science communication, which allowed Felton to share his workflow with the student. He also gave advice this past fall to a senior at CC who was applying to graduate school. “It was a surreal experience that in just about three years, I am now in a place where people are interested in my botanical journey,” Felton says.