Student Highlights: Samuel Robertson
— MEET SAMUEL —
Class: Junior
Major: Botany
Samuel is a Wyoming-born native to Laramie who has lived in Laramie his entire life. Biology has always been interesting to Samuel, but it wasn’t until high school when he started spending more time in the woods and studying his surroundings more carefully that he became curious about plants specifically. The more he studied and the more he learned about plants, the more engrossed Samuel became. When it came time for college, botany was a very natural choice. Even more so, when an opportunity arose to work in the Currano lab studying fossil plants, Samuel couldn’t say no.
— SAMUEL’S RESEARCH —
Samuel joined Matthew Butrim’s project in the Currano lab in the Spring of 2023. His primary research focus rests around the K/Pg extinction event and the recovery of the flora that were present through the extinction itself. Samuel’s work specifically pertains to a project utilizing machine learning networks to automatically identify and extract the different features of leaves. Essentially, we’re training a computer to recognize patterns of leaf veins and outlines from images.
A leaf fossil
One of the sites that was studied for fossil contents
ABOUT STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS
Every year, we award fellowships to graduate and undergraduate students attending the University of Wyoming or Wyoming’s community colleges in order to provide them with funding to engage in real-world research opportunities. Occasionally, we feature one of these students and their research on this blog. For more information about our student fellowships, visit our College Programs page.