Kelsey Songer

Kelsey (she/her) is a passionate botanist who has spent the majority of her life cultivating a love for photosynthetic organisms. As a child she could be found wandering trails and exploring the hillsides of Santa Barbara and that curiosity eventually led her to pursue a degree in ecology at UC Santa Cruz. Both as a student and later an assistant researcher, Kelsey studied a myriad of community dynamics including soil-legacy effects, plant-pollinator interactions, and plant-fungal relationships. She has thoroughly enjoyed studying these systems and feels most at home among the flora of the Bay Area. As a botanist with PRNSA, Kelsey traverses trails and hillsides to monitor the status of plant communities such as coastal grasslands, coastal dunes, and others in Point Reyes and beyond. She hopes that her work will contribute to the preservation of the incredible plant communities within Point Reyes National Seashore and the neighboring parks.