New faculty: Chloe Pak Drummond
New faculty at Mount Holyoke College Chloe Pak Drummond is a botanist and evolutionary biologist. She works with students to answer integrated evolutionary questions using field-based, molecular and bioinformatic techniques.
As a botanist and evolutionary biologist, Chloe Pak Drummond has a keen interest in biogeographic patterns of North American plants. Her curiosity for plant species with a discontinuous geographic distribution has led her fieldwork throughout the United States and as far as Alaska.
Now, as the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Biological Science, Drummond will teach students to not only cultivate a love of biology, but to also ask questions and nurture their own curiosity.
Drummond first began teaching undergraduate courses at Mount Holyoke College two years ago as a visiting lecturer in Biological Science. The College’s longstanding commitment to social justice was one of several reasons she’d decided to consider a role at Mount Holyoke.
“I knew that this school had commitments to uplifting women and gender-diverse voices as well as fostering diverse leadership in STEM – these resonated with my own core values,” said Drummond. “I knew that this was the kind of place I could thrive, and hopefully contribute to.”
Drummond also considered Mount Holyoke’s Botanic Garden, including the Talcott Greenhouse, comprising more than 2,000 different types of plants from six continents, as well as the herbarium collection to be a precious resource. The dedication to public outreach also spoke volumes about the College, she said.
“I was thinking, ‘If the College is supporting a botanic garden and greenhouse, that indicates to me that they're thinking about the importance of plants and the importance of botanical research amidst the global change that we're existing in right now,’” she said.
A native of New York, Drummond grew up in a Korean-Scottish-Italian American family of immigrants. Prior to Mount Holyoke, Drummond worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Pennsylvania State University. She holds a doctorate in botany from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as a bachelor’s degree in biology and a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from Oberlin College and Conservatory. While studying at Oberlin, she was a Bonner Scholar, which is a program centered around community service and social justice. The four-year scholarship program supports students as they work to bring about positive change through service, research and action.
This year, Drummond looks forward to developing a mentoring program and research program of her own. In the future, she would like to work with Community-Based Learning, which matches Mount Holyoke students, faculty and staff with local and regional leaders to work together on internships, research and service projects that have a positive impact on area communities.
Above all, Drummond is most excited about returning to her classroom and working with her students.
“The students have been just incredible. They really look beyond the material and want to know the why and the how – they’re pushing boundaries. I find myself genuinely inspired by these students,” she said. “They are eager to understand their local and global contexts and plants play a big part in that. I’m excited to see how Mount Holyoke students will address critical questions of today and push forward and expand botany and plant science with the cross-disciplinary thinking they develop here.”
