Patrick Dahl

Plant Evaluator
Phone:
(847) 835-8345
Research Interests:
  • Determining which traits have the greatest predictive power of plant performance
  • Differences in perception of color, structure and texture in the garden 
  • Performance of introduced species in climates and cultures that differ significantly from that of their natural range
Statement:

As Plant Evaluator, Patrick tries to leverage his breadth of experiences in his work. With professional experiences that have varied as widely as working in small-scale urban agriculture to doing medical imaging research, he has a lot of perspectives that he can pull from. It is this wide breath of experiences that informs his perspective on trialing plants for the garden: yes, there are some plants that generally perform better than others, but in a lot of cases, context means everything.

Beyond common performance metrics, Patrick’s interests include looking into what traits are the greatest factors in an individual’s perception of a plant, such as obvious physical traits like flower color or branch structure or less obvious traits like long-term consistent performance over many years and maintenance demands.

Patrick holds a B.S. in Physics from Illinois Wesleyan University and a M.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Chicago. His previous professional experience was focused on imaging technologies and their applications in industry and medicine.