Assistant Professor, Biology
- Postdoctoral Fellow, National Science Foundation, Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program, Host Institution: University of San Diego, 2023
- Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow, Biology, University of San Diego, 2021
- PhD Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, 2019
- BSc Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 2011
Dr. Wilnelia Recart González (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. She is a Puerto Rican plant ecologist studying how climate change, drought, and non-native species affect plant reproduction and pollination (the transfer of pollen from one flower to another). She is passionate about undergraduate student mentoring, outreach, and inclusion in the sciences. Through her lab, she mentors students in their research, helps them explore their scientific and career interests, and provides them with leadership, outreach, and science communication opportunities. In addition, she is involved in multiple organizations and efforts to make science more accessible and inclusive. Lastly, she leverages her fiber art skills, particularly cross-stitch, to provide workshops that connect science and art.
Areas of Interest
Dr. Recart González's research lab studies how climate change and non-native species affect plant reproduction and pollination. Her research focuses on plant species native to San Diego, California, or native to Puerto Rico and depend on pollinators for reproduction. She is particularly interested in how drought and non-native plant species influence pollinator-mediated selection, plant-pollinator interactions, and pollination-relevant traits (such as gamete quality and quantity, nectar production, and floral traits). She combines lab, greenhouse, and field experiments coupled with mathematical and species distribution models to address her research questions. She currently focuses on two plant study systems in California: the genus Phacelia (Boraginaceae family) and the stream orchid (Epipactis gigantea).
Dr. Recart González is passionate about inclusion and retaining minorities in science and academia. To this end, she has created workshops and panels for different scientific societies to foster change that increases the representation of underrepresented people in science. Her outreach efforts have reached over 500 California and Puerto Rico primary and middle school students. In these efforts, she has collaborated with middle school teachers and programs such as the Expanding Your Horizons and BE WiSE (Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering), whose goal is to bring STEM experiences to middle school girls. She has collaborated with the Ocean Discovery Institute, which focuses on inspiring young people traditionally excluded from science to engage with science and scientists actively. In her outreach efforts, she strongly emphasizes providing bilingual experiences, both in Spanish and English.