Dorothy Fabijan

Dorothy Fabijan, Assistant Curator, Vascular Plant Herbarium

"Dorothy has worked tirelessly to actively engage both the university and general public in the herbarium activities. She is dedicated to raising awareness of the value of our collections in addition to providing botanical knowledge. In all of her activities, she demonstrates innovation and initiative and does it all with a welcoming personality and genuine joy." - Jocelyn Hall, Curator, Vascular Plant Herbarium

Dorothy Fabijan, Assistant Curator of the Vascular Plant Herbarium, joined the university's botany staff in 1985 and has been in her current role since 1999. Dorothy is a strong advocate for the active use of museum specimens in teaching and research. Her hard work ensures that students have access to material that would otherwise be unavailable, greatly enriching their classroom experience.

She manages all aspects of the herbarium including international loans, processing new acquisitions through field research (including her own), preparing labs for students, driving an active volunteer program, and databasing the collection for global online access.

An accomplished botanist, Dorothy has an incredible breadth of knowledge and expertise in plant taxonomy and plant identification, providing these and other herbarium services to the university community and also to various levels of government, industry, non-profit organizations, and the public.

Dorothy is an exemplary ambassador for the herbarium and the work of museum collections, consistently maintaining the highest standards of practice. Dorothy received the Nat Rutter Outstanding Technician of the Year Award in 2011 from the U of A chapter of the Sigma Xi Research Society.

Adapted from nomination and support letters from Janine Andrews, Executive Director, University of Alberta Museums, and Jocelyn Hall, Curator, Vascular Plant Herbarium