Tamara Heartsill Scalley grew up in a hilly area outside San
Juan, Puerto Rico, playing among trees that would be razed for
housing developments before she hit junior high school. After
earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in her native land,
then a Ph.D. in ecology from Utah State University, Heartsill
Scalley returned to Puerto Rico, where she works as a USDA
Forest Service scientist. And now she’s a scientific superhero,
of sorts. Heartsill Scalley has her own trading card, along with
a dozen or so other USDA Forest Service Scientists. The
collectible cards are aimed at teenagers who want to learn more
about nature, and possibly about careers in the field. “I’m not
sure how they got my name, but they took a pretty diverse first
cut of researchers, and being chosen made me feel a little bit
proud,” the USU alumna said. “One cool thing I think the cards
do is help break that stereotype of who a scientist is and what
a scientist looks like. A scientist is not just someone working
with beakers in a lab. A