The Smith Lab has accumulated thousands of seaweed pressings collected over the past decade, largely by our research team or students in our Phycology (Marine Plant Biology) undergraduate and graduate lab course. As of 2023, we have been curating, cataloging, and digitizing these specimens to re-establish an official herbarium collection at SIO for teaching, research, and outreach. Our collection consists of 4,800+ specimens from >150 genera and nearly 300 species; the majority were collected in San Diego and represent native and non-native species currently found in Southern California. SIO's historical specimens, dating back to the late 1800s, were managed by Dr. Ralph A. Lewin and are now held at the San Diego Natural History Museum, UC San Diego Geisel Library Special Collections, or the University Herbarium at UC Berkeley.