M. Brooke Byerley – bbyerley@brit.org
Assistant Editor of Scientific Publications and Herbarium Collections Assistant. Brooke earned a Ph.D. in botany from Colorado State University, where she studied floral morphology and evolution in the genus Phlox (Polemoniaceae) and the impacts of native and invasive ant-plant interactions. She welcomes any opportunity to study Rocky Mountain flora, especially that of the eastern slope.
Robert George - rgeorge@brit.org
Project Coordinator for the 'Illustrated Texas Floras" series. Robert has an M.S. in botany from Stephen F. Austin State University-Nacogdoches, based on a floristic study of the herbaceous species of the Weches Formation in East Texas, and he maintains a particular interest in the grass flora of Texas.
John Janovec - jjanovec@brit.org
Research Botanist and Head of the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program based at BRIT and in Peru. John earned his Ph.D. in botany from Texas A&M University in 2000. He joined the staff at BRIT in June 2003 and started the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program. John conducts research at two scales of tropical plant diversity involving the Myristicaceae (nutmeg) family of flowering plants and the flora of the Andes-Amazon region of southeastern Peru. He has led or co-led 22 botanical expeditions to tropical America since 1995. He is also an Adjunct Faculty and a Graduate Advisor at Texas Christian University where he currently serves Graduate Advisor for four M.S. students. Publications and Bio.
Bob Johns - robertjohns@brit.org
Head, New Guinea Biodiversity, Conservation, and Land Use Management program. Bob is a New Zealand native recently retired as Principal Scientific Officer from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. While at Kew he was in charge of several projects in Papua New Guinea and now, far from being retired, he has transferred his projects to BRIT. Bob has worked for 40 years on the vegetation and flora of New Guinea, 22 years of which have been in residence in PNG, and was leader of the Botany/Ecology groups for the Ecological Needs Assessment in both PNG and Papua. He has published 5 books and several teaching manuals in addition to about 150 papers mainly on New Guinea. His taxonomic expertise is wide and encompasses a special interest in tree ferns, which are diverse in New Guinea. More Bio; Publications; New Guinea program
Barney Lipscomb - barney@brit.org
Head of BRIT Publications and holder of the Leonhardt Chair of Texas Botany. Barney has an M.S. in botany from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and began his botanical career as herbarium technician at SMU. He is one of the co-authors of the 'Illustrated Texas Floras' series and has a long-standing interest in the taxonomy of Cyperaceae.
Amanda Neill - aneill@brit.org
Director of the Herbarium. Amanda is in the last stages of work toward a Ph.D. in botany from City University of New York/New York Botanical Garden, studying systematics of the genus Gurania (Cucurbitaceae). She has a M.A. in botany from Texas A&M, based on a study of the flora of Madison County, Texas (see Sida 19(4):1083-1121. 2001) and has an active interest in floristics of Texas as well as of neotropical areas.
S.H. (Sy) Sohmer - ssohmer@brit.org
Executive Director and President. Sy's interests and responsibilities are mostly turned toward the financial underpinning of BRIT, but with collaborator Aaron Davis (Kew Gardens) recently he completed a taxonomic revision of the Philippine and Indonesian species of Psychotria (Rubiaceae). His experience in Pacific region (New Guinea, Ceylon, Philippines, Hawaii) and his coauthorship of the Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii (with Warren Wagner and Derral Herbst, first published in 1990) give him good perspective on paleo-tropical floristics.
Justin Allison - jallison@brit.org
Justin served as Publications Manager for the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program and as Administrative Assistant for the Flora of North America Asteraceae Editorial Center. He is now (2007) working to establish his own business in landscape architecture and management. Justin has a B.S. in biology with emphasis in botany from Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. He has special interest and expertise in the Cactaceae.
Fernando Cornejo - fcornejo@brit.org
Fernando Cornejo-Valverde, of Madre de Dios, Peru, is a Research Associate and Co-P.I. of the Andes-Amazon Biodiversity Programs. He shares responsibilities for directing field activities in Peru. He has a B.S. in Tropical Forestry. Fernando is well-known for his expertise in the tropical fruits and seeds, especially of the western Amazon. His interests lie in ecology and botany of tropical forests, as well as conservation and sustainable use and management of natural resources. One of his most recent and important projects has involved studies of the biology and economic botany of Brazil nuts (Bertholettia excelsa) in Madre de Dios, Peru, which led to the publication of the following book in 2003:
Cornejo, F. 2003. Historia Natural de Castaña (Bertholletia excelsa: Lecythidaceae) y Tecnicas para su Manejo. 50 pages. Published by Asociación para Conservación de la Cuenca Amazonica, Lima, Peru, and The Amazon Conservation Association, Washington, DC. Download the English translation of this book here.
George Diggs - gdiggs@austincollege.edu
George is professor of Biology at Austin College (Sherman, Texas). His Ph.D. was earned from University of Wisconsin-Madison, based on a study of the genera Arctostaphylos and Comarostaphylis (Ericaceae). George has broader interests in the taxonomy of the Ericaceae, floristics of New World tropics, and especially the floristics of Texas. Primary author of the 'Illustrated Texas Floras' series. More detailed information is available on George's website.
Joe Hennen
Long-time member of the faculty at Purdue University-West Lafayette, Indiana, Joe retired to Fort Worth in 1995 and has continued his teaching and research in rust fungi (parasites that many plant diseases). He has published more than 80 articles and since coming to BRIT, he has done field work and taught courses in Veracruz, Mexico, São Paulo, Brazil, and Honduras.
Robert Kral
Long-time member of the faculty at Vanderbilt University-Nashville, Bob retired but continues to work unabatedly as a systematic and floristic botanist, in both the herbarium and field. The huge VDB collection was amassed almost completely through his efforts and he continues as Curator to oversee its direction. Bob is centrally interested in floristics of the southeastern US, particularly Alabama and central Tennessee, and he is an expert in the systematics of Xyridaceae and various genera of Cyperaceae (as well as many other genera).
Alain Liogier
Dr. Liogier has served as Director of Botany at the Jardín Botanico Nacional in the Dominican Republic and as Taxonomist and Director of Botany at the Botanic Garden at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. He retired to Fort Worth in 1995 and maintains an interest in the systematics of Myrtaceae and Melastomataceae and in the floristics and biogeography of the Caribbean region. He is author of Flora of Hispaniola, the Flora of Puerto Rico and Adjacent Islands, and (with J.S. Sauget) the Flora of Cuba.
Robert O'Kennon - okennon@brit.org
Bob is recently retired from American Airlines as Senior Captain. A graduate of Duke University, he is self-taught as a naturalist and botanist and is known for his marvelously retentive memory, broad-ranging knowledge of Texas natural history (especially the flora), and excellent photography. He also is an expert in the taxonomy of Crataegus and is one of the co-authors of the 'Illustrated Texas Floras' series. Bob maintains active checklists of vascular plants for numerous sites in all over Texas and is currently working with Caren McLemore on a floristic study of LBJ National Grassland in Wise County.
Caren McLemore
Caren is a Ph.D. student in ecology at the University of North Texas in Denton. She specializes in the taxonomy and ecology of Juniperus, the north-central flora of Texas, and vegetation ecology. Caren is working with Bob O'Kennon on a floristic inventory of the LBJ National Grassland in Wise County, Texas.
Scott A. Mori
Scott is the National Lord Britton Curator of Botany in the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden. He earned his Ph.D. in botany in 1974 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with focus on the Brazil nut family of flowering plants (Lecythidaceae). Since then he has focused his research at two scales of neotropical plant diversity, the Lecythidaceae family and the floristics, ecology, and conservation of the Amazonian forests. Read more about him by visiting his biographic sketch at NYBG.
Virginie Raquet - vraquet@brit.org
Virginie is a native and citizen of France. She obtained a second M.S. degree at Texas Tech University in 2006 and, as part of the degree program volunteered at BRIT to organize and catalog the bryophyte and lichen collections. She also participated in research on Lithocarpus (Fagaceae), which are Southeast Asian trees, studying biogeography and morphology across the Wallace’s line. She also was Assistant Curator of the Reed Herbarium at TTU. She was employed at BRIT from January through August 2007, before returning to France.
In her degree program in Paris, Virginie studied New Caledonian shrubs of the family Myodocarpaceae, creating a morphological phylogeny of the whole family and comparing it to the molecular phylogeny. She has been worked as a botanist for nine years in various labs, natural parks, and museums in France, the USA, and Angola.
M.S. in Biology, with minors in Museum Sciences and Geographic Information Systems, Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX), 2006
M.S. in Systematic & Phylogeny, National Museum of Natural History (Paris, France), 2004
B.S. in Ecology & Botany, University of J. Fourier (Grenoble, France), 2002
Amy Trauth-Nare
Amy has a M.A. in botany from Arizona State University-Tempe, where her thesis was a taxonomic revision of four species of barberries (Berberis, Berberidaceae) of southern South America. Amy is actively interested in local and regional floristics and conservation. She served briefly as BRIT Assistant Collections Manager and now is teaching in the Fort Worth ISD.
