Potter’s Give Day challenge: Support research to understand and conserve plants

When Dan Potter was a kid growing up in a rural area in New York State’s Hudson Valley, he loved exploring the woods that surrounded the home, and his parents were avid gardeners. His interest in plants sprouted and grew, nurtured by great teachers in elementary and high school. In college, that interest flourished under the inspiration of outstanding courses taught by excellent professors. His appreciation for plant diversity and a fascination with plant classification burst into full bloom.

Now, Potter is the chair of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. He wants to support a new generation of budding scientists who are passionate about how plants have evolved, how they are distributed around the world, how they are related to each other, and how people use plants in different cultures.

And, he’s challenging you to help.

Potter has donated $25,000 to start the Daniel Potter Plant Sciences Support Fund. The fund also has opened for additional contributions through the UC Davis Give Day challenge, continuing through April 12. It’s a great opportunity for anyone to give any amount in support of this important and life-changing work.

Beyond this year’s Give Day event, Potter has committed to donating a total of $125,000, spread out over five years, to support an endowment in perpetuity.

Potter’s gift, plus everyone else’s contributions to his Give Day Challenge, will provide support to graduate and undergraduate students doing research in the areas of ethnobotany and plant systematics, which embraces how people use plants, plant diversity and classification, and plants’ relationships throughout evolution. The fund will also support research associated with the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium -- a kind of library of plant specimens, of which Potter is the director. 

These studies are fundamental for our ability to grow food and develop medicine, Potter explained. A graduate of Harvard and Cornell universities, he has been at it for more than four decades and at UC Davis for nearly three.

“One of my favorite parts of my job is working with grad students, but support for grad students has been a bit of a struggle, and support for my area of interest is limited,” Potter said. “I thought,  if I could contribute something to help in that area, I would do that.

“It is my hope that this gift would inspire other like-minded people to support this purpose, too.”

‘We have a responsibility’

At a deeper level, contributions to the Daniel Potter Plant Sciences Support Fund will help strengthen our own place in nature, the botanist said.

Time Potter spent after college in the Amazon rain forest further opened his eyes to the tremendous diversity of plants and how people use them for food, fuel, fiber, medicine, construction and beautification. When he took his first job at UC Davis, he was struck by the diversity he found in California, too.

“We have these wonderful resources,” Potter said. “We have a responsibility to do what we can to conserve them. Conserving them requires understanding them, and understanding them requires understanding the distribution of plants and their classification.

“There’s a relationship between biodiversity and cultural diversity and integrity,” he continued. “Preserving one helps preserve the other. Knowing about traditional uses and management, and valuing those, in turn contributes to valuing the biodiversity that underlies cultural diversity.”                                                                                           

By cultivating a new generation of scientists as awe-struck about this area of study as he is, Potter can contribute to conserving the astonishing web of plant life that sustains all humanity, and whose beauty brings joy to people throughout the world.

You can support budding scientists!

You can touch the future by contributing to the Daniel Potter Plant Sciences Support Fund during this year’s Give Day Challenge! Your contribution of any amount will help young people continue their studies and research. The fund specifically supports students in the areas of ethnobotany and plant systematics, including studies of plant taxonomy, phylogeny and evolution. It also supports their research associated with the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium, a resource for scientists around the world.

Learn more about Give Day opportunities supporting the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Scroll down to read more about the Daniel Potter Plant Sciences Support Fund.

Thank you for your support!