That's me on the left, my mom (Mary Hrovat) on the right, on top of Squaw Peak in Phoenix, AZ. And, yup, I really look like that.
| I was born in 1981 in Bloomington, Indiana, and lived there until the fall of 2004. I got my undergraduate degree at Indiana University, double-majoring in Biology and Philosophy; my interest in philosophy waned once I realized that Wittgenstein was right about most things, and that therefore most other philosophy can be safely ignored. My current interest in plants stems largely from two courses taken at IU, one in plant identification taught by Martha Bowman, then a grad student, the other a general botany course taught by recently-retired Dr. Gastony. While at IU I also worked in several labs, most notably the Brodie Lab, and got some amount of introduction to research and academic life as seen by herp, plant & insect researchers of varying levels of disfunctionality. |
| I'm currently a graduate student in plant systematics at New Mexico State University, and am living in Las Cruces. I'm working with Dr. Donovan Bailey, and am particularly interested in polyploid speciation, species boundaries, and things like edaphic endemism. Current research is on representatives of the mustard genus Boechera in New Mexico, looking at several uncertain species boundaries and the origins of a polyploid that was first described from the Organ Mts. In addition to plants, I have a long-standing interest in reptiles (in the strict sense, excluding chelonians, crocodilians, and birds), and currently keep a number of them. I also spend much of my time reading or hiking. |
| By this point, most of my photographs are from New Mexico, although there are still many from Indiana. I'm currently taking pictures with the Canon 5D Mk. II, a digital SLR, using Sigma and Canon, lenses. Pictures prior to 2004 were taken with either the Nikon Coolpix 4500 or its predessesor, the Coolpix 995. |
| If you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me at: paalexan@polyploid.net. So long as you're not calling for commercial purposes or simply being annoying, you can also call me at 575-521-3008. |
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