Weston Testo

Dr. Weston Testo is an Assistant Professor of Plant Biology and Director of the Pringle Herbarium at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on plant systematics, phylogenomics, and biodiversity conservation, particularly in ferns and lycophytes of the Neotropics. He leads projects involving natural history collections, fieldwork in Colombia, and computational modeling of plant diversity.

Education: Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of Vermont (2018). Previous roles include Assistant Curator at the Field Museum (2022-2023), Postdoc at the University of Gothenburg (2020-2022), and Postdoc at the University of Florida (2018-2020). His work integrates field studies with genomic and spatial analyses to address evolutionary questions.

Key research interests include hybridization in ferns, extinction risk modeling for Caribbean flora, and the evolutionary history of land plants. He co-leads a $1.1M NSF-funded project studying Neotropical fern diversity in Colombia and collaborates internationally on conservation initiatives.

Teaching includes courses like Plant Systematics and Tropical Plant Systematics in Costa Rica. Lab activities emphasize specimen-based research, data science for biologists, and field-based biodiversity studies. Current projects span from fern phylogenetics to epiphyte conservation in Colombia and Hispaniola.