When third-year biology and education student Raven Rogers was in the ninth grade, she saw the documentary “Fantastic Fungi” for the first time. An instant obsession grew and, like a mushroom, she sprouted with excitement at her newfound interest — mycology, the study of fungi.
Today, Rogers is the president of UC Irvine’s Mycology Club, an organization for those who are “experienced mushroom forager[s], or just interested in this curious kingdom of species,” as Rogers wrote in a Reddit post. She founded the club in the fall 2024 quarter with a three-person board. As the winter 2025 quarter ends, the club now has eight board members and around 10 to 15 regular attendees.
“My vision with the club is just to get enough college students interested, especially bio majors or people who are interested in STEM but don’t want to go into the generic pathways,” Rogers told New University.
Rogers points to the different majors in which mycology can be applied, highlighting its broad and applicable nature. Penicillin, discovered in 1928, derives from a fungus called Penicillium chrysogenum and now treats various bacterial infections. In 2023, researchers from the University of Sydney discovered that the fungi strains Aspergillus terreus and Engyodontium album can break down polypropylene, a common plastic that can take 20 to 30 years to decompose in a landfill.
“There are a lot of new opportunities in research with mycology that [people] should be exposed to,” Rogers said. “Especially our generation, who will need to be dealing with the climate crisis and the mental health crisis, and all of these issues that can be at least, in my optimistic mind, heavily helped with the research of mycology.”
Students participating in UCI’s Mycology Club can learn about the benefits and misconceptions about fungus, which is neither plant nor animal. Kathleen Treseder, UCI professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and principal investigator of the university’s Treseder Lab, collaborates with the club and urges her graduate students to speak at their meetings.
In addition to club meetings, members go on hikes and nature walks together, oftentimes seeking fungi in their natural habitat. However, students are careful not to pick or touch any fungi or lichen — a combination of fungus and alga more common in the Orange County area — not only out of respect for the environment but because they are not professionals.
“[Fungi are] so abundant,” Rogers said. “They’re all around us. They form relationships within plants, intertwined with the cell walls of plants that sustain them. They allow communication between trees, oh my gosh, there’s so much. If it’s researched, it can do big things. So I think my drive for the club is to get as many people aware of its existence and the different things that we can do with it.”
The club faces some misconceptions about its intentions. For instance, on Rogers’ introductory Reddit post, a user commented asking if the club was a “lowkey club for students who want to take shrooms.” Shrooms, also referred to as magic mushrooms, are psilocybin mushrooms, a hallucinogenic mushroom that has been recreationally and medicinally used for thousands of years.
“I do think that there is a misconception that our club is just a group for people that want to do shrooms,” Rogers said. “I think that’s a massive oversimplification of what mycology is.”
The Mycology Club does not actively promote the use of shrooms, but they offer a safe space to share experiences and advocate for their safe consumption.
“We don’t get together and do shrooms. We advocate for safe consumption if people are interested in doing that, but we don’t tell them to,” Rogers told New University. “We take it very, very seriously, because it’s a very strong chemical that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It should be researched for the benefit of humanity, though that’s my personal stance.”
The club resumes its regular bi-weekly Monday meetings from 6-8 p.m. in the spring. To kick off the quarter, the student organization will host a screening of “Fantastic Fungi” in hopes that other Anteaters will see the beauty in mushrooms.
“Mycology is a very interesting and powerful subject that should be researched, appreciated and preserved,” Rogers said. “We should be doing everything we can to understand fungus because it is such a vast species.”
Cassandra Nava is a Layout Editor. She can be reached at cassan2@uci.edu.
Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo.