Araya Andersen is a AMP Masters Student in Botany at Oregon State University’s Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. Araya is earning a BS in Botany and Plant Pathology from OSU and is enrolled in the Accelerated Masters Program (AMP) to enter a Masters in Fall 2025. Araya is deeply passionate about plants from the Araceae and has contributed to description of new species as well as revision of taxonomic relationships between them as an undergraduate research fellow. She is working to identify the homology of organs produced by the duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza, a super small aquatic Aroid that creates specialized sinking survival organs called ‘turions’ during stress. Araya is a proud Indigenous scholar with heritage from the Mnikhówožu band of the Cheyenne River tribe and the Aniibiminani-ziibiwininiwag band of the Turtle Mountain tribe.

anderara at oregonstate dot edu