Cecilia Stokes

Cecelia Stokes is a first-generation Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Botany. She received an undergraduate degree in General Biology from the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA). During her time at UNCA, she was awarded University Research Scholar Designation, Distinction in Biology, and received the Bernhardt-Perry Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. Additionally, she was an intern for the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy where she helped manage and restore threatened ecosystems. Although Stokes’ first research focused on plant ecology and conservation, she fell in love with the world of fungi during a Mycology course and never looked back. To gain more experience with fungi, she became a Research Technician in a Plant Pathology lab through North Carolina State University to research fungal plant pathogens and their impacts on agricultural systems. In 2022, she began her Ph.D. at the University of Wiscon

sin-Madison, co-advised by Drs. Anne Pringle and Michelle Jusino. Simultaneously, she is a Pathways Intern at the Center for Mycological Research of the U.S. Forest Service. Broadly, Stokes is interested in how interactions between fungi and other organisms shape and influence the evolutionary trajectories of fungal traits. Her current work investigates the chemical and invasion ecology of the ectomycorrhizal fungus, Amanita phalloides.