Pamela Soltis, a distinguished professor and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has been selected as a 2022 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific society. Soltis is among 508 scientists, engineers and innovators who were chosen as fellows based on their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements throughout their careers.
Lawrence Page, a current AAAS fellow inducted in 2019 and curator of ichthyology at the Florida Museum, nominated Soltis for the award.
“It is a joy to have Pam as a colleague here at the Florida Museum,” Page said. “She is broadly recognized as one of the top plant evolutionary biologists in the world, and her contributions have led to her receiving many prestigious awards and honors, including the Darwin-Wallace Medal from the Linnean Society of London and election to the US National Academy of Sciences.”
Soltis is a botanist and curator of molecular systematics and evolutionary genetics at the Florida Museum and director of the University of Florida’s Biodiversity Institute. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, her research focuses on plant diversity and evolution.
Soltis is widely known for her recognition of the importance of polyploidy, the condition of having more than two sets of chromosomes, which has led to the origin and diversification of several modern plant groups. Soltis uses genomic methods and computational modeling to understand patterns and processes of plant evolution and to identify conservation priorities. Much of her current work focuses on plant diversity and conservation in Florida, but her research has taken her throughout the U.S. and Canada and to Costa Rica, New Caledonia, Spain, China and Brazil.
An additional 18 researchers and experts from the University of Florida were chosen as 2022 AAAS fellows. The roster of 2022 fellows was officially announced on Tuesday, January 31 at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Source: Pamela Soltis, psoltis@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Jerald Pinson, jpinson@flmnh.ufl.edu, 352-294-0452