Amanda Hernandez Email & Phone Number

United States

Death Valley National Park, California, United States

The National Park Service (NPS) is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior whose mission is to preserve the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The Great Basin Institute helps fund and employ young people to get introduced and integrated into careers within national parks, forests, open spaces, and public lands.Moving into my newest role, I serve at the point of contact and leader for invasive vegetative and terrestrial species management. I lead field crews in fencing installation to mitigate spring impacts of the nonnative burro and invasive species removal efforts all throughout the park. This work assists in mitigating the workload of existing management projects. As a result of these efforts, the team has increased knowledge and better control over the various invasive species that live within the park.

Death Valley National Park, California, United States

* Documented, identified, digitized, and mounted 100 + herbarium specimen to contribute to the Death Valley Herbarium. * Designed a periderm stripping protocol to assess damage to Yucca brevifolia (Joshua tree) populations using ArcGIS to inform future resource management practices. * Collaborated with leadership from Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave Desert Network Inventory and Monitoring Division to improve periderm stripping protocol. * Revised documentation of 230+ threatened/ endangered plant species for Death Valley area for third party contractors to be cognisant of when working on park land.* Prepared team for field surveys by packaging 30+ gallons of water, data collection tools, camping gear, landscaping equipment, and hiking equipment to conduct overnight backcountry botany surveys over 5 days in the Panamint Mts.* Operated company 4WD trucks on backcountry roads for 10 hours a week to get to remote field sites.* Conducted species abundance surveys, 3 x 3 and 10 x 10 plot surveys across 4 mountain peaks to assess population composition for GLORIA Great Basin long term research program.* Participated in delicate protocols for Cyprinodon diabolis (Devil’s Hole Pupfish) in an Early Life Stages survey to track growth and vitality of the rarest fish species in the world.* Assisted with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Macroinvertebrate Survey at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to quantify.* Presented poster of Yucca brevifolia (Western Joshua tree) periderm herbivory protocol at the Department of the Interior for former/ current NPS directors, Environment for the Americas senior leadership, and Scientists in Parks program coordinators.* Gave oral presentation of Joshua tree periderm herbivory protocol at the Mojave Desert Science Symposium for key NPS science / resource leaders of the Mojave Desert.

New York, Ny

The Bergelson Lab hosts many graduate, post doctoral, and undergraduate student projects to fill the knowledge gap regarding genetic questions around the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. As an Undergraduate Research Assistant on the Comparative R-genes project, I was responsible for taking biological experiment results and converting this information into digestible visualizations to better understand the results of each lab task. Using my programming skills with R, shell, and JuniperLab, I took genomic results and generated summary tables, charts, and graphs to gadge validity of the experiments. These visualizations were used to communicate how experimental processes could be improved in the lab and were used in publications to convey findings.* Leveraged R and Shell with NYU’s High Powered Computation Network to process, manipulate, retrieve, and visualize genomic data to better understand how shared plant pathogens can potentially maintain ancient balanced polymorphism of resistance genes in plants and co-evolve due to these genetic changes.* Wrote 1000+ lines of script for lab duties for personal and lab wide use.* Participated in lab meetings to discuss current projects, future endeavors, and obstacles for ongoing experiments.* Generated summaries of data utilizing terminal programs (BUSCO, Fastqc, Interproscan, NLRannotator, and NanoPlot).* Created graphs, tables, and scripts of generated summaries in R to highlight patterns and trends to be used for further analysis and in final publications on research projects.

New York, New York, United States

NYU’s Residential Life and Housing Services is a branch under New York University responsible for the operation of NYU’s residence halls, home to approximately 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students during the academic year and summer session.NYU’s Lafayette Hall Resource Center provides residence hall services to the largest dormitory on campus. As an Office Assistant, I was responsible for ensuring residents checked in with resources upon arrival and departure from the hall, processed and delivered packages to residents, and provided logistical support to residents in need of assistance. Using my organization, communication, and teamwork skills, I was able to assist over 1000 residents with housing needs and became a familiar helpful face for those who entered the resource center.* Administered check-in and check-out processes for over 1000+ residents in the building and informed residents of logistic and wellness protocols of the dormitory.* Received, organized, logged, and delivered 2000+ packages to building residents daily in order to minimize delivery to retrieval turnover for residents.* Resolved roommate disputes, lockouts, facility issues, work requests, and other issues residents had with various aspects of the building.