From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 1, January 2019.
By W. John Kress
Ida Lopez came to the Smithsonian in June 1998 as a Museum Specialist to work with me to develop the Zingiberales and Monocot Research Program in Botany. I could tell immediately when I first met her that our partnership in pursuing science, collection development, and running the day-to-day operations of the lab had the potential to be a long-term interaction. Now, twenty years later, my first impression has proven correct. Congratulations, Ida, on a tremendously successful career.
I do not think Ida knew much about Museum Collections when she arrived, but the enthusiasm and welcoming spirit of the Collections Management Team in Botany quickly solved that problem and she became a specimen devotee. This was not only true concerning herbarium specimens, but also the development of our extensive and important living collection in the Botany Greenhouses. Over the years the improved care and maintenance of both living and preserved specimens became one of her prime concerns. And the devotion she has shown towards our living collections, not only the Zingiberales, but all of our research specimens, especially over the last several years with the lack of adequate greenhouse management, has been beyond the call of duty. All of us in the Department thank her for her efforts.
With regards to research, Ida has been instrumental in most if not all of the hundreds of papers and books that have been published through our lab during her tenure. Not only has she been a co-author on a number of those papers, but her keen eye for effective and clear figures and illustrations was unsurpassed. The book I published with Ted Fleming on the “Ornaments of Life” (University of Chicago Press) is loaded with Ida’s handiwork and our opus on “Methods and Protocols of DNA Barcoding” (Humana Press/Springer) could not have been done without her contributions.
Whenever I came back from a field trip that was focused on pollination of Heliconia in the Caribbean or searching for new gingers in Southeast Asia, I realized that Ida also needed that kind of field experience to help her manage all the other aspects of the lab. So off we went to Dominica to build an experimental shade house for breeding system studies in Heliconia, and off we went to Myanmar to work with the Forestry Department, and off we went to Yunnan, China, to collect gingers. I was right: her excellent assistance in the field provided a much better background for coordinating our research activities at home. Time to go back to the field, huh, Ida?!?
In addition to those full-time activities in research and collections, Ida managed the lab and all the lab workers within. Not only did she manage the funds for our research grants, both internal and external, but she also initiated the contracts and placed all the orders. Probably most important was the wonderful care that she provided for the scholarly visitors, the interns, the post-docs, the students, and all the other colleagues who passed through the lab. It was an unending stream of personalities. Probably one of her most rewarding activities was mentoring young scientists through the YES Program at NMNH and through local high schools. I thank her for all of these interactions that made the lab so rich and vibrant.
This short summary of Ida’s time at the Smithsonian is starting to sound like a “career performance appraisal” for Ida. However, performance appraisals really do not always get to the core of one’s contributions to the museum and to science. Ida was deeply committed to learning about and participating in natural history science. And I think she made our lab exceptional in that way because everyone who came to the lab learned to share that commitment. Our scholarly activities were a success because to her. Thanks, Ida. Yes, thanks so much.
