# Dawson White HUH Research Fellow (January 2023) person email I am fascinated by the study of how plant lineages have moved around and evolved into their present diversity and distributions, and what these histories can teach us about the nature of species. My research uses genomic, chemical, and spectral reflectance data to reconstruct and describe these histories in the Coca family (cocaine, not chocolate) and the genus *Dryas,* with a major focus on the evolution of coca and ayu crops (*Erythroxylum coca* and *E. novogranatense*).