ANN ARBOR, MI — Thais Vasconcelos’ early interest in plants stems from her childhood in Brazil.
“I used to love to go out and about and walk in the middle of nature since I was a little kid, and when it was time to decide on a career, I knew that I wanted to be a naturalist,” she said.
Vasconcelos, 36, is now in charge of a collection of over 1.7 million plant specimens as the director of the University of Michigan Herbarium…