The Ashton Award for Student Research supports investigations by graduate and advanced undergraduate students working on Asian tropical forest biology.

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a living museum. A 281-acre preserve in the heart of Boston, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University stewards one of the world’s most comprehensive and best documented collections of temperate woody plants, with particular focus on the floras of eastern North America and eastern Asia. The living collections, herbarium, and library and archives support research both in our own laboratories at Weld Hill and by scholars around the world. Free and open every day, this jewel in the Emerald Necklace park system was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and engages the public through educational opportunities and programs for all ages.

The Ashton Award for Student Research is made possible by the generosity of Professor Peter Ashton and his wife Mary Ashton through the Peter and Mary Ashton Training Fund.

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University discovers and disseminates knowledge of the plant kingdom to foster greater understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of Earth’s botanical diversity and its essential value to humankind.

The Arboretum was established in 1872 when the trustees of the will of James Arnold (1781-1868), a whaling merchant of New Bedford, Massachusetts, transferred a portion of Arnold’s estate to the President and Fellows of Harvard College. In the deed of trust between the Arnold trustees and the College, income from the legacy was to be used “for the establishment and support of an arboretum, to be known as the Arnold Arboretum, which shall contain, as far as practicable, all the trees [and] shrubs . . . either indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in the open air.”