From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 2, April 2024.
On March 1, 2024, Jun Wen became the new Chair of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History, while Eric Schuettpelz transitioned into a new role as Curator of the Herbarium.
Dr. Jun Wen (Chair of Botany). Jun Wen is a Research Botanist and Curator in the Department of Botany with a collections-based research program on phylogenetic systematics and biogeography of the flowering plants. Wen is a leading authority on the systematics of the ginseng plant family and the grape plant family. She has published extensively on the biogeographic relationships between eastern Asia and North America and the biogeographic patterns of Asian plants. Wen advocates collaborations and partnerships and she values collections. She has collected over 20,000 numbers of plant specimens. Wen works to inspire interest in science in young people. She actively mentors students and early-career professionals through the Smithsonian’s fellowship and internship programs. She has trained many young scientists on biodiversity and evolution through her extensive field work and collaborative research. Wen actively serves her professional communities and is currently the President of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. She is a co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Systematics and Evolution and a co-editor of the Plant Systematics World column for Taxon published by International Association for Plant Taxonomy. Wen received her Ph.D. in Biology in 1991 at The Ohio State University. She completed a postdoctoral position at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University in 1994 and then moved to the Smithsonian for a postdoctoral fellowship. She was appointed as an assistant professor and curator of the herbarium at Colorado State University in 1995. She became an associate curator for The Field Museum in Chicago in 2000 and remained there for five years. In 2005 she joined the Smithsonian's Department of Botany.
Dr. Eric Schuettpelz (Curator of the Herbarium). Eric Schuettpelz is a Research Botanist and Curator in the Department of Botany, with a collections-based research program focused on pteridophytes. He earned a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and a Ph.D. from Duke University. After completing postdoctoral fellowships at Duke University and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, he spent three years as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina Wilmington before joining the Smithsonian's Department of Botany in 2013. His research on ferns and lycophytes has been mostly systematic in nature, emphasizing taxonomy and the identification of phylogenetic relationships. However, he has also published on rates of molecular evolution, biogeography, the evolution of epiphytism, and links between fern and flowering plant radiations. Today, he continues to integrate fieldwork, morphological and molecular data, and phylogenetic approaches to elucidate the evolutionary history of ferns and other vascular plant lineages. He served as Chair of Botany since early 2019.
Wen, as Chair of Botany, will lead the department, with the support of Schuettpelz, as Curator of the Herbarium. Operationally, they will work as a team, overseeing responsibilities and staff under their purview while jointly conferring on shared items or with others within and outside the department as appropriate. They will attend meetings together when applicable and communicate consistently with Botany staff, seeking broader input where appropriate. Together they will form the leadership team for the Department of Botany.
As part of this transition, Sue Lutz has stepped away from her position as Acting Collections Manager. Lutz served admirably in this role for nearly 7 years and will continue to work closely with the Curator of the Herbarium on collections oversight.
Wen is the 17th Chair of Botany in the history of the U.S. National Herbarium, and the first woman and the first Asian-American to hold this title. For a past look at the Botany Chairs, see “A History of Chairs” in The Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2006).
Comments