Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Suissa.
Hi Jacob, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
In 2019, along with my friend and colleague Ben Goulet-Scott, I founded Let’s Botanize – an educational non-profit with the goal of combating the climate and biodiversity crises by spreading curiosity, knowledge, and appreciation of plants. I met Ben during our PhDs at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Let’s Botanize started as a way for us to spend time together in natural settings studying plants. Over time, we realized that we could share our passion for plants with people around the world by leveraging social media as a massive democratizer of knowledge. We create evidence-based education content in the form of videos and photos. Our content is accessible and entertaining, without compromising scientific rigor. Our goal is to capture our genuine curiosity and joy that we still feel even around the most familiar plants! Since its inception Let’s Botanize has grown externally as well as internally and we have two amazing board members: Dr. Ashley Heim (Director of Education Research) and Dr. Sylvia Kinosian (Director of Strategy).
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Initially it was easy to produce Let’s Botanize content and run the organization as Ben and I used to live in the same city (Boston). As we have moved along from our PhD’s, it has become harder to get do this. We meet virtually a couple times per week and schedule quarterly retreats where we are able to film and run the organization. We try hard to maintain a casual and spontaneous tone, but this is more difficult when we have to plan and film 10-12 videos at a time. Moreover, it is important to note that we have full time day jobs, and this work is a passion project for us that we run and maintain in the evenings and in our spare time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an educator who spans both traditional academic settings and informal educational settings. As an assistant professor at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville I ask questions about the generation of biodiversity on Earth. With Let’s Botanize, I specialize in taking academically rigorous information and turning into digestible forms of information (usually videos and photos with captions) for people to enjoy and learn from. The content is known for being genuine, friendly, approachable, unintimidating while also being a reputable source for botanical information. We are most proud when people tell us that we have had positive impact on their life by changing the way they look at plants. This often comes in the form of comments and messages on our platforms.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I did not know I liked plants growing up, but I loved to be outside in nature. It was obvious to me that nature was an infinite well of fascinating things to look at and observe. However, I did not have the language or precedent to understand that botanizing was a potential hobby or pastime that I could fall in love with. It was only later in college and graduate school that I learned this.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.letsbotanize.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsbotanize/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/letsbotanize/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb4U-S4YRV9-TvIZDYq8zhA
