Bobbi Lammers Celebration
Celebrating Roberta Lammers-Campbell, PhD, a Leader in Restoration Ecology
On Saturday, November 11, 2023, nearly 50 students, faculty, staff, members of Loyola’s administration, and community volunteers came together at the Loyola University Retreat and Ecology Campus (LUREC) to express gratitude and recognize Roberta Lammers-Campbell, PhD, professor emerita.
Bobbi Lammers mentors student volunteers during restoration workdays at LUREC.
In 2018, Lammers-Campbell (Bobbi) retired after 28 years of teaching in the Department of Biology, the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (now the School of Environmental Sustainability), and LUREC. At that time, Bobbi shared her plan to continue her work with the LUREC fen restoration and with the two herbaria she started, both at LUREC and in Biology, in her new role as professor emerita.
Over the past five years, Bobbi has devoted tremendous time and effort towards the fen restoration, leading and teaching students on Saturday restoration workdays and partnering with community volunteers. Fens are rare wetland ecosystems that receive a constant flow of water rich in minerals such as calcium or magnesium bicarbonates. The fen on the LUREC grounds suffered ecological degradation due to land uses that involved draining the wetland and displacing native plant and animal communities for pastureland. Bobbi and the student volunteers have worked to clear invasive plants and restore a biodiverse native ecosystem. They have successfully restored populations of native wetland plants such as red baneberry, skunk cabbage, and swamp thistle. Bobbi has documented the native plant species that have survived at LUREC and added them to the online Consortium of Midwest Herbaria, making them broadly available for study.
In recognition of her efforts, Bobbi received the inaugural SES Emeritus Faculty Leadership award with gratitude for her enthusiastic mentorship of Restoration Club students and her unwavering commitment to restoring native plants to the LUREC fen. The LUREC fen is now officially named in her honor, the Dr. Roberta Lammers-Campbell fen, or “Bobbi’s fen.”
In 2018, Lammers-Campbell (Bobbi) retired after 28 years of teaching in the Department of Biology, the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (now the School of Environmental Sustainability), and LUREC. At that time, Bobbi shared her plan to continue her work with the LUREC fen restoration and with the two herbaria she started, both at LUREC and in Biology, in her new role as professor emerita.
Over the past five years, Bobbi has devoted tremendous time and effort towards the fen restoration, leading and teaching students on Saturday restoration workdays and partnering with community volunteers. Fens are rare wetland ecosystems that receive a constant flow of water rich in minerals such as calcium or magnesium bicarbonates. The fen on the LUREC grounds suffered ecological degradation due to land uses that involved draining the wetland and displacing native plant and animal communities for pastureland. Bobbi and the student volunteers have worked to clear invasive plants and restore a biodiverse native ecosystem. They have successfully restored populations of native wetland plants such as red baneberry, skunk cabbage, and swamp thistle. Bobbi has documented the native plant species that have survived at LUREC and added them to the online Consortium of Midwest Herbaria, making them broadly available for study.
In recognition of her efforts, Bobbi received the inaugural SES Emeritus Faculty Leadership award with gratitude for her enthusiastic mentorship of Restoration Club students and her unwavering commitment to restoring native plants to the LUREC fen. The LUREC fen is now officially named in her honor, the Dr. Roberta Lammers-Campbell fen, or “Bobbi’s fen.”