Dr Nathalie Nagalingum received her Doctoral degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and has worked at Duke University, Harvard University, the University of California Berkeley, and most recently at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. She was recently appointed as Associate Curator and the McAllister Chair of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences. Her research is focused on understanding the long-term persistence of ferns and cycads—ancient lineages that have survived through multiple episodes of radiation and extinction. To address the history of, and processes involved with, these episodes, Nathalie has a multi-disciplinary research programme that incorporates field studies, fossil data, microscopy/morphology, molecular DNA sequencing, big data and patterns of distributions. Nathalie is particularly interested in adopting novel approaches and techniques in her research.