Amsonia kearneyana (Kerns bluestar) only occurs in the Baboquivari mountains found in southern Arizona. The Fish and Wildlife Service has managed this species for the past ~30 years and has notably observed a drop in population size with little to no recruitment. Small population size and inbreeding depression threaten genetic diversity of Amsonia kearneyana. Determining key population level parameters will help to inform overall management of this rare species. The student will work to extract DNA from all samples of Amsonia kearneyana, and then prepare ddRadSeq libraries for sequencing. Finally, the student will use bioinformatic skills to clean sequence data, and generate population level statistics to compare it with other closely related species. In addition to the above work there will be opportunities to work more in the molecular lab with other plant samples, gain more bioinformatic skills analyzing target enrichment data for phylogeny reconstruction, and the possibility of field work. The end goal of this project will be to publish a small paper on the population genetics of Amsonia kearneyana.