Frank Pickett

I have always enjoyed looking at diatoms. I feel connected to the natural environment by using a microscope to observe the microbiota that I collect. The microscope admits me to the natural world, more intricate than I could imagine or design. Scanning electron images of the diatom cell wall structure fascinate me.

I attended the diatom course at Iowa Lakeside Lab under Charles Reimer in 1974. My graduate research (MSc in Botany (Aquatic Ecology), Montana State University) was on the diatom flora of two streams in Yellowstone National Park. My career was as a water quality biologist, but now I am back, once again, working at the microscope.