Carolyn Lawrence received her B.A. in Biology from Hendrix College in 1996. She went on to complete her M.S. in Biology (specializing in plant physiology) at Texas Tech University in 1997, and received her Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Georgia in 2003. At the University of Georgia, Carolyn was supported by NSF grant BIR9220329, a training grant to study mechanisms of molecular plant evolution. This funding enabled her to pursue proficiency in both molecular and cellular biology and in bioinformatic techniques. Carolyn's area of expertise is evolutionary cellular biology. She is a postdoctoral associate in the Brendel lab at Iowa State University.