From Plant Press, Vol. 12, No. 2 from April 2009.
The Department of Botany and the United States National Herbarium present this annual award to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas (1903-1996), a pioneering botanist and taxonomist who spent nearly a half-century working in the Smithsonian Institution’s Department of Botany. Cuatrecasas devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America and this award serves to keep vibrant the accomplishments and memory of this outstanding scientist.
The winner of this prestigious award is selected by a committee made up of four botanists on the staff of the Department in consultation with other plant scientists outside of the Smithsonian Institution. Nominations for the Medal are accepted from all scientists in the Botany Department. The award consists of a bronze medal bearing an image of José Cuatrecasas on the front with the recipient’s name and date of presentation on the back. Highlights from past presentations to the recipients are available on the Symposium Archives at <http://botany.si.edu/cuatrecasas/cuatrecasasMedal.cfm>.
Norris H. Williams of the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida in Gainesville is the eighth recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany. Williams’ area of expertise is on Neotropical Orchidaceae. His work on orchid molecular phylogenetics, the chemistry of floral fragrances, and pollination biology of orchids has given us a better understanding of the evolution of these plants and their insect pollinators.
Williams received a B.S. from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa with a major in Biology in 1964 and an M.S. from the same university in the same field in 1967. In 1964-1965 he held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Miami in 1971. After graduation he held a series of postdoctoral positions—at the University of Miami, in the Department of Botany of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and at the FairchildTropicalGarden in Coral Gables, Florida. In 1973 he secured an appointment as an Assistant Professor of Biology at FloridaStateUniversity in Tallahassee. Promoted to Associate Professor, he remained at FSU until 1981, when he moved to Gainesville. Currently, he has a joint appointment at the Florida Museum of Natural History and University of Florida where he is a Professor of Botany. He served as Chairman of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Florida Museum of Natural History for almost ten years.
Williams’ is author or co-author of almost 100 papers and his current research focuses on the molecular systematics of Maxillaria and its relatives, and the molecular systematics of the subtribe Oncidiinae (Orchidaceae). His field work has taken him to Central America (notably Panama), the Caribbean, and South America (Colombia, the Guianas, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina). He is an Honorary Life Member of the American Orchid Society and has received the President's Medal of the University of Costa Rica and the Lankester Prize for pioneering work on the ecology, evolution, phylogeny, and systematics of orchids.
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