The University of Wisconsin Arboretum has announced three finalists to become its next director. The Arboretum was established in 1934 from cultivated fields and pastures that had fallen into disuse. The university decided, early on, to try to bring back the plants and animals that had lived on the land before its development. Today the Arboretum encompasses 1,260 acres.
Two of three finalists for director of the Arboretum are women.
Kayri Havens is the Medard and Elizabeth Welch Director of Plant Science and Conservation and senior scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. Before coming to the Chicago Botanic Garden in 1997, Dr. Havens worked as a conservation biologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Dr. Havens also serves as an adjunct instructor of conservation biology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She earned a Ph.D. in plant sciences at Indiana University.
Donna Paulnock is a professor of medical microbiology and immunology and associate dean for the biological sciences at the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Paulnock is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and holds a Ph.D. in immunology from Stanford University. She joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in 1983. She is currently serving as interim director of the Arboretum.