Maya Shamsid-Deen

Dr. Maya L. Shamsid-Deen is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. She is a trained botanist with a specialization in plant systematics and evolutionary ecology. Dr. Shamsid-Deen earned her doctoral degree from the University of New Mexico, where she conducted research on plant phenotypic plasticity, i.e., the ability of plants to alter their physical traits in response to the environment without genetic change. Her dissertation featured a large-scale greenhouse experiment investigating the role of phenotypic plasticity in plant fitness and colonization success. In addition to her work on phenotypic plasticity, Dr. Shamsid-Deen contributed to a collaborative long-term ecological study examining the influence of symbiosis on host genetic diversity using bioinformatic techniques.

A recipient of the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Ford Fellowship, Dr. Shamsid-Deen has developed strong pedagogical expertise. She served as a Student Experience Project Fellow, which employs in community-centered and inclusive teaching methods to improve student outcomes. Throughout her graduate career, Dr. Shamsid-Deen taught both writing-intensive and research-integrated courses.