Erin Berkowitz

Erin Berkowitz grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Her family regularly visited the Cleveland Metroparks, which sparked her interest in the natural world.  Berkowitz attended Ursuline College, a private liberal arts school where she took ecology and genetics courses that inspired her interest in the natural sciences. She graduated with a bachelor’s in biology and life sciences. Because Museums were a substantial part of her upbringing, Berkowits decided to volunteer at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and then with the Division of Natural Resources at the Cleveland Metroparks, where she would complete two field seasons working on the Plant Community Assessment Program (PCAP).

As an intern at the Conservation and Land Management, Berkowitz worked on the Seeds of Success (SOS) program, where she became familiarized with the flora of the Great Basin region and gained field experience in proper plant collection. In addition, she was a curatorial intern at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware. As a herbarium workroom manager/curatorial assistant at the herbarium at California Botanic Garden, she gained experience with specimen processing, mounting, digitizing, and filing.

Berkowitz has presented at two conferences for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) on various topics related to her work at CalBG (2019 & 2022). She is a member of SPNHC and Southern California Botanists (SCB) and is the professional development officer for the Early Career Section of the Society of Herbarium Curators.

Currently, Berkowitz is developing a thesis project incorporating data from historical plant specimens and recent collections to answer scientific questions under the mentorship of Herbarium curator Dr. Hannah Marx and senior collections manager Harpo Faust from the UNM Museum of Southwestern Biology.