PULLMAN, Wash — Washington State University botany Professor Douglas Soltis is the new president-elect of the Botanical Society of America. He assumed the duties at the society’s annual meeting earlier this month in Baltimore and becomes president of the 3,000-member organization next year.
Soltis came to WSU in 1983. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the College of William and Mary and his master’s and doctoral degrees in biology from Indiana University. He has received numerous grants to support his research, which is in the area of evolutionary relationships in flowering plants and ferns for which he utilizes a variety of experimental approaches. He delivered this year’s WSU Distinguished Faculty Address and received the College of Sciences Distinguished Faculty Award. As BSA president-elect, Soltis will deliver the presidential address at the International Botanical Congress to be held in St. Louis in 1999.
A second WSU faculty member on the BSA Executive Committee is Pamela Soltis. She was elected to a three-year term as secretary to the society last year. The BSA recently has undertaken projects to publish the American Journal of Botany online, support graduate student research, fund student travel to the International Botanical Congress, and develop both web-based and traditional teaching tools for K-12 and undergraduate courses in botany.
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