Anna Wassel

PhD Candidate
Principal Investigator, Pawpaw Patrol

“I fell in love with St. Louis immediately and knew it was where I wanted to live when I grew up. Now I am here!”

Anna Wassel began her venture into forest research with Jonathan Meyers as a six-month forest technician. She now leads her own research team, the Pawpaw Patrol.

“I did an REU [Research Experience for Undergraduates] at MoBot [Missouri Botanical Garden] in 2017, after my second year of college, and I just fell in love with the city. A lot of people feel like they can’t afford to be picky with where they live if they are in academia, but I knew I had to be here. I said, ‘If I am going to go to graduate school, I want to have access to one of the best research botanic gardens in the world.’ WashU has a formal relationship with MoBot. It's been my dream to come here since 2017.”

How does your love for St. Louis contribute to your passion for conservation?

“I’m passionate about conservation for the Midwest in general. The Midwest ecosystems are underappreciated, which is part of the reason I wanted to work in this region. This is one of the hardest places to do conservation work because land is so cheap here. It is hard to make an argument that we should not cut down this forest or pave over that prairie that looks like any other patch of grass to the untrained eye. We need to start with education and policy advocacy before my research will benefit conservation at large.”