Ashley Bales

Ashley grew up in the creeks and forests around DFW, but truly discovered her passion for the environment while obtaining her Bachelor of Science in Biology degree at the University of Alabama. During her time in Tuscaloosa, she worked at the University of Alabama Herbarium (UNA) to image their specimens. After graduation, she wanted to continue working with plants and was elated to have found a position in Fort Worth do just that. 

In 2017, Ashley started off as a summer intern until an opportunity opened up for a collections assistant for the recently acquired University of Louisiana at Monroe Herbarium (NLU) of roughly 472,000 specimens. During these two years of this NSF-funded RAPID grant, Ashley was responsible for curating and ensuring the security and accessibility of the NLU collection. Beginning in 2019, Ashley accepted the position of Herbarium Collections Assistant for the BRIT Philecology Herbarium and was responsible for managing herbarium volunteers and activities as well as assisting with all aspects of curation for the four collections (BRIT/SMU, VDB, NLU). In 2020, Ashley started working remotely in Lubbock assisting with the TORCH TCN grant funded by the National Science Foundation to digitize all specimens collected in Texas and Oklahoma. In 2021, she transitioned to the Digitization Coordinator position and began overseeing remote volunteers and outreach. During her time in Lubbock, she assisted with the start-up of a new herbarium at the Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Yoakum Dunes Wildlife Management Area. Ashley also obtained her Certificate in Geographic Information Systems and Technolgies (GIST) at Texas Tech University. With a return to the DFW area in 2022, Ashley accepted the position of Herbarium Collections Manager, to care for all collections and volunteers for the Philecology Herbarium. 

Contact Ashley for all herbarium inquiries, including accessibility (visits, loans, database), digitization, volunteering opportunities, and all general questions.