Story in the College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor,
Biology Biology professor examines how the rarest plant species
evolve over time in the coldest corners of Alaska. Justen
Whittall '96 is an expert on West Coast plants, particularly the
ones that are hardest to find. The SCU biology professor, a
native of the South Bay, studies the federally endangered
Metcalf Jewelflower and California's Torrey Pines, one of the
rarest pines in the world. His early work at SCU set him on this
path. "As an undergraduate, I took a course in field botany and
discovered I could take what I was learning in the classroom and
lab and put it to use in the field," Whittall says. "From that
moment, I was hooked." As an assistant professor in SCU's
biology department, he also studies plants in the Arctic Circle;
last summer, he traveled to Alaska to better understand the
adaptability of plants in cold climates—an unknown factor in
understanding global climate change. He and his assistants are
researching the genetic basis fo