Dr. Austin R. Mast

My research program involves topics within the broadly defined area of biodiversity study. I am particularly interested in (1) the interplay of ecology and evolution that determines the form and function of plant life on Earth, (2) the use of biodiversity research specimens and digital information about them to bring that interplay into sharper focus, and (3) public engagement in the research to further science and STEM literacy goals. Historically, I have focused my research on Macadamias and relatives (the plant family Proteaceae), Primroses and relatives (the plant family Primulaceae), and historical biogeography, but I'm keen to innovate wherever I see opportunities to expand our understanding of biodiversity. This has led me deep into the areas of biodiversity informatics and participatory sciences (sometimes called "citizen science" or "community science") in recent years, and I have NSF-funded grants in both of those areas.<br /><br />Participation in<a href="https://www.idigbio.org/" target="_blank">iDigBio</a>, NSF's National Resource for Advancing the Digitization of Biodiversity Research Collections, has been especially productive. iDigBio is a joint project between University of Florida, Florida State University, and (recently) University of Kansas that engages the collections community in the digitization (e.g., databasing, imaging, georeferencing) of the roughly 1 billion specimens held in US biodiversity research collections and deployment of the data online. I am a co-PI on iDigBio and serve as Director of its Digitization, Workforce Development, and Participatory Sciences Domain. Broadening participation in digitization via meaningful opportunities (e.g., co-created citizen science projects) is an area of active research in my lab and includes the development of <a href="http://www.biospex.org" target="_blank">BIOSPEX</a>and the <a href="http://www.wedigbio.org" target="_blank">Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio) Event</a>. Recently, I have been working with collaborators from FSU's School of Information and Department of Statistics to teach machines to recognize descriptions of biotic anomalies in specimen labels (e.g., "flowering earlier than I've ever seen before"). And I have been working with collaborators from the FSU Department of Art to produce a flexible protocol for capturing 3D models of organisms in the field at the time of collection using photogrammetry and emerging methods like Neural Radiance Fields and 3D Gaussian Splatting. David Jennings (UF Florida Museum of Natural History) and I have enjoyed offering a popular strategic planning course for biodiversity collections once- or twice-a-year since 2017, andI also founded, and regularly teach in, the <a href="https://digitizationacademy.org/" target="_blank">Digitization Academy</a>, which provides online professional development opportunities to the community. Courses are regularly announced via listservs and social media (e.g., the<a href="https://twitter.com/iDigBio" target="_blank">iDigBio X feed</a>).<br /><br />During the COVID-19 Pandemic, I led a large team to<a href="http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3974999" target="_blank">enhance data about the world's 90,000 historic specimens of horseshoe bats and relatives</a>.<br />I also serve as Director of <a href="http://herbarium.bio.fsu.edu/" target="_blank">FSU's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium</a>, Director of the FSU College of Communication and Information's <a href="https://idiginfo.org/" target="_blank">Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication (iDigInfo)</a>, and board member of the <a href="https://participatorysciences.org/" target="_blank">Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences</a>(ending 2025) and the <a href="https://citizenscienceglobal.org/" target="_blank">Citizen Science Global Partnership</a>. As a board member of the CSGP, I have represented the participatory sciences community at a few United Nations events, including the Environment Assembly (UNEA 6) and the World Data Forum.<br />I especially enjoy working with students and herbarium staff on projects focused on the biota of the gulf and the Florida Panhandle. Students in my lab have studied such things as pollination, changes in range extent and phenology with climate change, invasive species, the evolution of floral development, the biogeography of microbiomes, the biogeography of lineages that reach their greatest diversity in the disjunct New World savannas, and the historical treatment of biological anomalies by collectors. I teach Field Botany in Fall semesters and Plants & Society in even-year Spring semesters.<br /><br />The Florida Panhandle is a great place to be a field biologist—consider joining our lab or pointing your promising students our way.Recent members of the lab include <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2K3JyE4AAAAJ&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">Chris Buddenhagen</a> (Ph.D., 2016), <a href="https://www.libbyellwood.space/" target="_blank">Libby Ellwood</a> (Postdoc, 2013–17), <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelin-katie-pearson-2b9b187a/" target="_blank">Katie Pearson</a> (M.Sc., 2018), <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikayla-buckley/" target="_blank">Mikayla Buckley</a> (Honors B.Sc., 2020), <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-scherer-91b23774/" target="_blank">Brendan Scherer</a> (Ph.D., 2021), and <a href="https://blackbotanistsweek.weebly.com/natasza-fontaine.html" target="_blank">Natasza Fontaine</a> (M.Sc., 2021). They are a fantastic group of scientists.<br />Finally, here are a few recent grants that further illustrate the kind of work in which I'm involved:<br /><br />Nelson, R., Fortes, J., Soltis, P., <strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Blackburn, D. (Sep 2021–Aug 2026). iDigBio: Sustaining the digitization, mobilization, accessibility, and use of biodiversity specimen data in U.S. museum and academic collections. Funded by National Science Foundation. Total award $19,995,068.<br />Cardillo, M., Jordan, G., Weston, P., Sauquet, H., <strong>Mast, A.</strong> (Dec 2019–Dec 2022). Legacy of Gondwana: Evolutionary history and conservation of Grevilleoideae. Funded by Australian Research Council. (DP200102927). Total award AU$390,000.<br />Nelson, R., <strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Blackburn, D., Fortes, J., Soltis, P. (Aug 2016–Sep 2022). Digitization: iDigBio: Integrated Digitized Biocollections Phase 2. Funded by National Science Foundation (1547229). Total award $16,454,662.<br /><strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Paul, D. (Jul 2020–Jun 2022). RAPID: Rapid Creation of a Data Product for the World's Specimens of Horseshoe Bats and Relatives, a Known Reservoir for Coronaviruses. Funded by National Science Foundation. (2033973). Total award $199,999.<br /><strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Riccardi, G. A. (Jul 2015–Jun 2020). ABI DEVELOPMENT: Notes From Nature: Advancing A Next Generation Citizen Science Platform For Biocollection Transcription. Funded by National Science Foundation. (1458550). Total award $336,938.<br /><strong>Please note,</strong>in 2022 I discontinued maintenance of a separate lab website focused solely on activities in my lab in FSU's Department of Biological Science. This was in part due to the recognition that most of that content describing major research themes could be shared on this page. However, it was also due to the fact that I provide leadership and mentoring in several contexts in addition to the lab, and I already expend time curating content at the websites of those other organizations, including the herbarium, iDigInfo, and iDigBio. Members of my lab in biology are typically active in some combination of those organizations, and those organizations' websites (linked above) should provide a relatively rich portrayal of the kinds of opportunities provided when working with me at a post-doc, graduate, or undergraduate level.

Skeels, A., Sauquet, H., <strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Weston, P. H., Olde, P. M., Jordan, G. J., Carpenter, R. J., Fenker, J., Reynolds, Z. K. M., Lemmon, A. R., Lemmon, E. M., Pichardo-Marcano, F. J., &amp; Cardillo, M. (2025). Paleobiome dynamics shaped a large Gondwanan plant radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122: e2502129122. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2502129122" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2502129122</a><br /><br />Skeels, A., Sauquet, H., <strong>Mast, A.</strong>, Weston, P. H., Olde, P. M., Reynolds, Z. K. M., Fenker, J., Lemmon, A. R., Lemmon, E. M., &amp; Cardillo, M. (2025). Sources of gene tree discordance and their implications for systematics and evolution of a megadiverse Australian plant radiation (subtribe Hakeinae, Prote