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Major #Botany2026 FOMO, but the drive MA->OR starts this week. So, sharing from afar: I’m recruiting grad students for my new lab at OSU! Info: www.mckenzie-lab.org . We're going to have FUN with systematics, speciation genomics, methods, natural history, and more in North Am angiosperms. Reach out!

Short but awesome trip to Mexico with a great team. Also, success: finding Monarda pringlei! It’s one of two red Monarda species (the other being the Appalachian species M didyma) and it is confined just to a tiny area in the mountains above Monterrey

I’m starting at Oregon State University this September as Herbarium Director and Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. An absolute dream job and I am so grateful! Looking to grow the lab soon and will update here. In the meantime please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Let's go!!!!!!!!!!!

outdoors time today. The birds are moving, the bugs are out, the plants are flowering, and the kids are tired

So cool to see our work highlighted here! Thanks @botany.one ! And, re: the question “were you one of the observers in our dataset,” besides in the paper supplement, there’s a full list of them here: github.com/pmckenz1/mon...

Spun off a lightweight python package “pedigraph-sim” for simulating meiosis on arbitrary pedigrees. It tracks how crossing over produces segments of local ancestry and contains convenience functions like exporting the tree sequence to tskit for analysis: github.com/pmckenz1/ped...

GitHub - pmckenz1/pedigraph-sim: Combining explicit pedigrees with crossover simulations with ARG tracking.Combining explicit pedigrees with crossover simulations with ARG tracking. - pmckenz1/pedigraph-simgithub.com

map of overall (radial) avg flowering day across all species, made using PhenoVision-labeled iNat data. Trying to figure out if I should be surprised by this or questioning my data analysis... is the late flowering in the west Sierra Madre well known? Fwiw, corresponds to rainy season there.

the "lost" species Monarda mexicana is still out there! Known from just 2 historical collections (most recent from the 1950s). Imagine my joy in stumbling on a picture of it on @inaturalist.bsky.social !!! We've now documented the first known modern populations and revived the species name:

iNaturalist-facilitated rediscovery of Monarda mexicana (Lamiaceae) in high-elevation habitats of Durango, Mexico | Phytotaxa doi.org

Successful Ithaca visit looks like 1) time in the Bailey Herbarium, and 2) birding the compost piles

Can't imagine what it'd be like to deal with TGCT as a child. Proud to be involved in this work characterizing the pediatric patient experience.