Jesse obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is currently finishing his Masters thesis at Middle Tennessee State University, focusing on comparative plastomics of Liquidambar (sweetgum) and how marker choice affects phylogeographic inference. Jesse has broad interests in floristics, biogeography, and genome evolution. He joined the Smith lab in the fall of 2018 to investigate systematics and the evolution of flower color in Clematis (Ranunculaceae).