The Arizona Mushroom Society is proud to announce that the 2025 Dr. Chester Leathers Student Scholarship has been awarded to five students engaged in the study of mycology in an Arizona college or university this year! 

This year the scholarship award was increased to $2000 per award for graduate students and a new category for undergraduate students was added with a $500 award.

This scholarship is a valuable opportunity for the Arizona Mushroom Society to support individuals pursuing the study of mycology in Arizona and to honor Arizona Mushroom Club founder and mycologist, Dr. Chester Leathers. 

This year's scholarship awards go to...

Keven Griffen 

Keven is a PhD student at the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry. Her studies include how to best restore soil biocrusts and whether the restoration of biocrusts catalyzes broader ecosystem restoration. Her recent work includes growing biocrust sods to facilitate restoration within the 2021 Telegraph Fire near Superior, AZ.

Amanda Rouillard

Amanda is a PhD student with the School of Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University. She is studying freshwater fungal communities and their role in nutrient cycling and decomposition in Arizona streams. She is using techniques including Quantitative Stable Isotope Probing to study decomposition rates in leaf litter.

Jackson Parrish

Jackson is currently an undergraduate getting a Bachelor's degree in microbiology, and has already been accepted as a Masters student in Biology, both at Arizona State University. He currently works at the BEAR Lab as a lab assistant where he plans to expand his studies as a graduate student into the relationship between psilocybin-induced gut microbiome changes and cognitive, behavioral, and epigenetic outcomes in aged mice.

Sierra Weaver

Sierra is an undergraduate in studying biology at Northern Arizona University. She is interested in studying if bark beetles can detect and are influenced by fungi in tree tissue. She is interested in investigating if bark beetles can detect and tunnel away from parasitic fungi (Beauvaria bassiana) when given a choice.

Zach Jacob

Zach is an undergraduate at Northern Arizona University studying chemistry. He is interested in using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to determine heavy metal concentrations in locally foraged mushrooms. He plans to start by investigating the content of Cadmium in Amanita cochiseana (nom prov).

On December 7, 2024 Arizona Mushroom Society members voted for 5 of 9 positions on the Board of Directors. The final count was extremely close, and we wish we could keep them all! 

To find out the final results, please visit the 2005 Board of Directors Election Results webpage. 

The Arizona Mushroom Society is proud to announce that the 2024 Dr. Chester Leathers Graduate Student Scholarship has been awarded to four graduate students engaged in the study of mycology in an Arizona college or university this year!

This scholarship is a valuable opportunity for the Arizona Mushroom Society to support individuals pursuing the study of mycology in Arizona and to honor Arizona Mushroom Club founder and mycologist, Dr. Chester Leathers. 

This year's scholarship awards go to...

Danika Thiele - Danika is working on a Masters of Science and Policy at Northern Arizona University. She is studying the arbuscular fungi of Saguaro Cacti in habitat with varying fire history and invasive species presence to support Saguaro conservation.

Andrew Henning - Andrew is in a Masters of Science program at the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University. His work focuses on identifying native bioactive endophytes and their metabolites in northern AZ Ponderosa pine. 

Ri Corwin - Ri is studying for a Masters in the Biology Department under Dr. Catherine Gehring at Northern Arizona University and transitioning into a PhD program. Her area of study is focusing on the effects of climate change on arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi.

Kirby Morris - Kirby is is studying for a Masters in the Biology Department under Dr. Catherine Gehring at Northern Arizona University. His studies include an assessment of Geopora abundance under drought and whether or not they are associated with drought tolerant or intolerant pinyon trees.

Thanks to Scientific Committee Chair, Terri Clements, all of the approximately 140 fungi species observed during the August 11-13, 2023 Annual Foray have now been documented on the 2023 Annual Foray Species List.

AMS Annual White Mtn Foray 2023 Species List.xlsx

This list is helpful for knowing which species of macrofungi occur in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. Many of these species have been DNA sequenced to confirm identification as marked on the spreadsheet.

Foray mycologist Else Vellinga and Foray Specimen Manager, Spencer Wimmer also contributed greatly to this effort.

On December 2, 2023 the Arizona Mushroom Society held annual elections to seat four elected members of the Board of Directors. The voting took place electronically for the entire day, and the results identified the following new board members to serve a term on the board from 2024-2026.

We want to congratulate your elected board members!!!

Lisa Goodwin

Jason Sartor

Spencer Wimmer

Adam Bailey

We also want to truly thank all candidates willing to volunteer their time and share their passion for fungi with all of us.

We now have an Etsy shop open for AMS merchandise! New items will be added as time allows.

Please visit here for the shop.

On Monday, December 12, 2022 the Arizona Mushroom Society Board of Directors voted unanimously to raise the annual membership costs for individuals and families from $15/year to $25/year. The change in membership costs will take place starting in 2024.

The decision to raise the annual membership cost was based on sudden increases in active members in the organization in the last few years and based on a benchmarking study that compared membership costs amongst similar organizations. The annual membership cost has remained the same since the organization was incorporated. During that timeframe, membership increased by over a factor of 10, which has resulted in greater costs and a need for more capacity to address operational limits. A look at similar mycological organizations throughout the west showed us that the Arizona Mushroom Society had the lowest membership costs of all of them at $15/year. Our neighboring mycological clubs have membership costs on par with the approved $25/year cost.

If you have questions about this decision or to discuss membership payment options or support, please contact us at azmushroomsociety@gmail.com.

The 2022 Annual Foray occurred on August 12-14, 2022 throughout the White Mountains. 

This Species List was compiled by Terri Clements based on input by foray mycologist Alan Rockefeller, and contributions by foray participants, foray leaders, and others who entered observations into the iNaturalist app during the weekend of the foray in the white mountains area.

We had a robust monsoon season with above average precipitation resulting in the listing of 250 different fungal species on the annual foray species list!

The 2021 species list from the August 20-22, 2021 Annual Foray is now available!

This list was compiled by Scientific Committee Chairperson, Terri Clements, with contributions for foray leaders. 

This year's precipitation was well above average and Terri recorded 210 different species!

To view the list, you can click here.

The Arizona Mushroom Society Annual Foray is planned to occur in the White Mountains on the weekend of August 20-22, 2021. The 2021 foray will be similar to last year, where participants are to find their own lodging arrangements and AMS will host a number of small group forays throughout the weekend. 

In addition to the forays, AMS will host an in-person presentation or mushroom identification talk for any and all registered participants during that weekend.

We're still figuring out the details, but wanted to share our current plans in case you can join us this summer.