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I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Dr. Marburger since 2005. From 2005 to 2010 I served as Education Director at the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, a not-for-profit residential education facility within Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore that worked in close partnership with the National Park Service (NPS). Dr. Marburger was the Research Coordinator at the Great Lakes Research and Education Center (GLREC) at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The GLREC is one of the NPS Research Learning Centers that were developed to facilitate research efforts and provide educational opportunities. They are places where science and education come together to preserve and protect areas of national significance. During those years, we had close contact with each other and my staff of college students and recent college graduates greatly benefitted from seminars she led as well as work on collaborative research and education projects. I have now moved on into academia and have continued contact with Dr. Marburger as a valued colleague.

Dr. Joy Marburger is a brilliant scientist. Her work on DNA analysis of cattails was groundbreaking in efforts to understand the range of native and invasive cattail species not only in the Indiana Dunes but throughout the Great Lakes region. In the summer of 2009, Dr. Marburger served as a mentor to one of my summer staff members working as a Camp Counselor/Naturalist Trainee. She oversaw his spare time work on a unique two-fold project designed to study and control invasive cattails in the wetlands of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. One part of the project had him collecting cattail pollen and analyzing it to determine if it was the native species, the invader, or a hybrid of the two, which has become a “super-invader.” Dr. Marburger had previously run DNA analysis of the three types of cattail in the national lakeshore and was designing a citizen-science protocol for the collection and microscopic analysis of pollen grains which has proven effective in understanding the mix of species and intensity of the invasion. My staff member assisted Dr. Marburger in a variety of ways, testing her protocol and helping to develop it in an easily understandable and practicable fashion. He also conducted a survey of insects found in association with the three varieties of cattail as the beginning step of examining potential bio-controls on the invaders. That work has resulted in three scientific publications to date, in Plant Science Bulletin (2013) 59(4):174-177; Wetlands (2011) 31:221-228; and Park Science (2013) 30(2):58-68. For an undergraduate student at Michigan State University, work with an esteemed scientist and mentor like Dr. Marburger was instrumental in his career. That young man who was so fortunate to have Dr. Marburger as a mentor is now working on his Ph.D. in plant ecology at Iowa State University.

I offer the above detailed story as a testament to the kind of scientist and teacher Dr. Joy Marburger is. She is both brilliant and approachable. She goes out of her way to ensure her students’ success. She has an ability to translate very complex science into everyday language. She also has an uncanny ability to apply a scientific understanding and methods to solving real-world problems. In all interactions with my staff, a community of learning and teaching, she was an exemplar teacher and resource person. She created relationships with my crew that allowed them to value the science based management of protected areas and to see teaching at its best. It was rigorous, understandable, and always field based.

I cannot speak highly enough about Dr. Joy Marburger. She is just the kind of teacher that will serve well in WorldTeach. Her experience at the Great Lakes Research and Education Center, her life as a practicing scientist, her advocacy of citizen science, and her time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone make her uniquely qualified.