Elizabeth Polen joined the Hunt Institute staff in the summer of 1999. As a technical editor for the Flora of North America project, she is responsible for applying the specialized formatting, style, and usage standards to botanical taxon manuscripts. She is also the managing editor for the FNA Newsletter, which is published quarterly.
Mrs. Polen graduated from Miami University of Ohio in May 1999, receiving a B.A. in English-Creative Writing. In the summer of 1998, she interned as an editorial assistant at F&W Publications of Cincinnati, Ohio, where she worked on manuscripts in various stages of production, from concept to completion. In addition to her work at the Hunt Institute, she is also a freelance editor for Dorrance Publishing in Pittsburgh.
She has written a young adult novel, which is near completion, and several short stories, and hopes to see her fiction published shortly. In her spare time, she enjoys writing and reading, particularly children's and young adult fiction, as well as movies, volunteering, drawing and painting, anything medieval or Celtic, and ice cream.