Mandy, a resident of Colorado since 2008, is an undergraduate at CU Boulder majoring in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Her research this year involves creating a checklist for Marchantiophyta in the Comanche National Grasslands of Southeast Colorado. Marchantiophyta, or liverworts, are of interest because they are silly and ridiculous in name and form, which are two qualities that Mandy appreciates in a plant. In addition to this, liverworts are a fascinating group that descends from the common ancestor of all land plants. This has interesting evolutionary implications given how static the liverwort’s morphological form has remained. The region of study was selected because previous undergraduate researcher, Joseph Kleinkopf, found molecularly distinctly populations of Amorpha nana in the grasslands, indicating that this might be a region of neoendemism. In her free time Mandy enjoys climbing things and meandering around Boulder.