Kirsten Fisher Ph.D.

"I spent my formative years playing in creeks and ditches in northern California, where I learned to appreciate small, growing things. I earned my undergraduate degree in Biology at UC Santa Cruz, and after a couple of years of varied employment as a gardener, bakery cashier, and bank teller, decided to pursue graduate education. I was wooed into the world of mosses by Brent Mishler at UC Berkeley, who served as my PhD advisor and provided me with the opportunity to study the systematics of a tropical moss family, Calymperaceae. After earning my PhD, I did a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, NC, where I learned to appreciate barbeque and California weather. I returned to California in 2008 to join the faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at Cal State LA, where I am now a Professor."