Caitlin Hazelquist

Caitlin works with our Genetics Team. You’ll find her in the lab at the Pritzlaff Conservation Center.

Caitlin often extracts and prepares DNA samples from many branches of the tree of life for high-throughput and traditional sanger sequencing. When not holding a pipette, she can be found collecting and surveying out in the field, or taking a close-up look at leaf characteristics using the scanning electron microscope in the anatomy lab. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from California State University, San Bernardino, where she gained an enthusiasm for fieldwork, California flora, and using molecular biology as a conservation tool. She’s especially fascinated with how environmental pressures shape plant physiology, genetics, and distributions, and how, in turn, plants shape their landscapes. 

Research interests: plant ecophysiology, ecology, molecular genetics, speciation, rare plants, conservation, desert Salvias