Pam Soltis
Pamela S Soltis is Distinguished Professor of Botany at the University of Florida, Principal Investigator at the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics, Curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History, Director for Research Activities for iDigBio, Director of the Biodiversity Institute, a former president of the Botanical Society of America, and a recently elected Member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She earned her Ph.D. in Botany at the University of Kansas in 1986. Her research interests include molecular systematics of plants, especially angiosperms, morphological and molecular evolution of the flower, and conservation genetics of rare plant species.
Pam Soltis works alongside her husband, Doug (also a distinguished professor at the University of Florida), and together they study the origin and evolution of flowering plants, plant genome evolution and conservation genetics. They use genomic methods and computational modeling to understand patterns and processes of plant evolution and identify conservation priorities. They have also initiated outreach projects to help increase public understanding of biodiversity, using the “tree of all life” as a metaphor for the importance and connectivity of all species.
Dr. Soltis has authored or edited 11 books, including Molecular Systematics of Plants, Developmental Genetics of the Flower, and Plant Systematics: The Origin, Interpretation, and Ordering of Plant Biodiversity. She has authored or coauthored several hundreds of articles, served as an editor on over a dozen journals, acted as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and other organizations, and received numerous fellowships, awards and recognitions for her work, including scores of grants from the NSF, a Mellon Faculty Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution, and most recently being hailed (in 2014) as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters.
Sources:
http://news.hr.ufl.edu/2016/06/pam-soltis-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences/
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/pam-and-doug-soltis-elected-to-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/museum-voices/soltis-lab/files/2014/02/PSoltis-CV.4.15.pdf
Sponsored by the Department of Biological Sciences, the College of Science, the Office of Graduate Education and Research, the Kentucky Native Plant Society, and the Honors College.
Published on November 30, 2017