Victor Garcia Balderas’ current role at the Arboretum as a research aide-rare plants is part of the Rare Plant RaMP: Research and Mentoring for Post-Baccalaureates in Biological Sciences program, awarded by the National Science Foundation. Under the co-mentorship of Dr. Silvia Alvarez-Clare and Kate Good, Garcia Balderas focuses on conservation work in Baja California Sur.

Garcia Balderas completed his education at California Polytechnic Humboldt, earning a BS in botany. During his undergraduate studies, Garcia Balderas worked as a student instructor and an assistant for the botany department, as well as for the herbarium collection, where he implemented R code to create species distribution maps of native vascular plants located in various herbaria collections in California.

Garcia Balderas also spent a summer as a botany and pollination biology intern through AmeriCorps at the Bureau of Land Management in Utah. He conducted plant surveys for native and endemic plants and various milkweeds in addition to tagging monarch butterflies and surveying bumblebees in the state of Utah.

He is always excited to learn hands-on how successful tree conservation stems from the collaboration of many scientists, science communication, and community work.