Herbarium Graduate Assistantship, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The Shaw Lab at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is seeking a Master's student interested in botanical research who is also looking gain experience running and growing a mid-sized herbarium from 50,000 to 65,000 specimens. Primary responsibilities of this position will be to oversee complete digitization of the herbarium, and specimen preparation, integration, and digitization of the backlog.

The UCHT Herbarium contains >50,000 specimens that are part of the current collection and an additional 10,000 specimens in backlog. Herbarium specimens in this collection are mostly from Tennessee and north Georgia, but there are significant numbers of specimens from western states, and several countries from Africa, Asia, and Europe. UCHT was digitized as part of the larger SERNEC effort and many specimens have been more deeply digitized to include collectors, dates, and locality strings.

From the research perspective, the student and Joey Shaw may develop a thesis project on various topics related to floristics, invasive plant species, rare plant species, conservation, herbarium studies, or herbarium specimen digitization. From the non‑profit side, we seek a student willing to assist with the workload of creating, organizing, running, and report writing related to the 73rd annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A graduate position with $4,806 maintenance/tuition fee waiver and $4,500 stipend per semester (valued at $18,600 per year) is available starting Spring 2027 and will be available for up to six academic semesters depending on performance. It is very common for Shaw Lab graduate students to also be awarded separate summer contracting. A partial maintenance fee waiver will be applied to the student’s UTC account and may leave a remaining maintenance fee balance of approximately $1,100.

• Undergraduate degree in a related field.
• Undergraduate GPA > 3.0.
• At least 1 undergraduate course (or other training) in botany and/or strong evidence of botanical experience.
• Strong work ethic and communication skills.

• Understanding Symbiota/SERNEC portals, basic coding (R or Python), experience working with people; i.e., a strong candidate will be able to effectively communicate with academics, researchers, conservation workers, or members of the public.

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