Page 30 - Botany_2015_Proceeding

Featured Speakers

The Botanical Society of America annou nces the establishment of a new "Emerging
Leader Award" to be given annually in recognition of creative and influential
scholarship in any area of botany retlecting the breadth of BSA. Awardees will have
produced outstanding scholarship and a lso demonstrated exceptional promise for
future accomplishment.

Em erging Leader Lect ure

Sponsored by the American
Journal of Botany

Mechanisms of flower color
converge nce above and
below the species level

Stac ey Smith

University of Colorado - Boulder

Wednesday, July 29

Hall C
2 :30 pm - 3 :3 0 pm

Botany

Dr. Stacey Smith is an accomplished researcher with a true commitment to education
and outreach and a willingness to step into leadership ro les. She is currently an
assistant professor at the University of C<llorado, Boulder.

Smith did her undergraduate work at Vi rginia Tech, earned a Master's on a Marshall
Fellowship at the Universities of Reading and Birmingham, an d then obtained a PhD
in Botany from the University of Wisconsin in 2008 After doin g a post-doc at Duke
Un iversity, and spending 3 years on the facu lty at the University of Nebraska, she
took her current position in 20 13. Over that time Dr. Smi th has proven herself to be
a prolific researcher, with more than 25 publications, includi ng co-authorship of the
book, Tree Thinking: An Introduction to Phyloge netic Biology.

Dr. Smith is best known for her work on lochrominae (Solanaceae), a clade that
she has turned into a spectacular model system for bridgi ng ecological studies of
pollination biology with genetic studies of the biochemical an d genetic basis o floral
diversity. In add ition, she has collaborated on diverse evolutionary studies and has
made important contributions in phylogenetic theory. However, as noted by her
nominator, "Stacey is not just a great researcher, but also a com mitted educator:' She
has been ac tive in traditional university courses, diverse o utreach activities especially
in a K- 12 setting, and as a resource instructor for the OTS Tropical Plant Systematics
course. She has also played an important role in identifying the challenge of teaching
tree thinking and in providing resources to help teachers overcome those challenges.

Finally, it has been noted that D r. Smith is "a generous and suppor tive person who
leads by example and draws along many other junior (and sen ior) colleagues in her
wake." Given all these contributions to botany, Dr. Smith is a verrfitting recipient of
the inaugural BSA Emerging Leader Award.

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