We are very proud to announce Irene Kopelman is now a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

An STRI Research Associate is someone who has demonstrated the qualities of superior achievement expected of an established and independent research scientist. While Research Associates are not employees of the Smithsonian, this title is used to denote an individual’s formal scholarly affiliation with the Institution.

Kopelman’s long-term collaboration with the STRI began in 2012 with a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Grant. The partnership with this institution has enabled her, over the course of more than a decade, to join research teams studying subjects such as lianas, marine invasive species, mangroves, fiddler crabs and most recently, corals, fungi ecology and the night vision of bees. Kopelman's association with scientists in these vistas opens up for her windows within which to expand her drawing and painterly praxis.