Thanks to Roxanne Fisher, Doug Jensen, David Kramer, Scott Meissner, Jim
Perry, Al Ruesink, Scott Shumway, Tracy Sterling, and Mary Williams for
speaker suggestions. Several of you have asked me to send a compendium
of the responses to the list, so here it is, alphabetized by candidate.
Wherever possible, I've added a relevant web site.
David Attenborough
<http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7330.html> (biography ad)
"I don't know anything about him but David Attenborough did the book
and video series "The Private Life of Plants" and he may be available to
speak (but I suspect he may have a hefty speakers fee)."
Michael Balick, New York Botanical Garden
<http://www.nybg.org/bsci/staf/balick.html>
"ethnobotanist and authority on palms of Belize."
Norman Borlaug,Texas A&M
<http://ipgb.tamu.edu/borlaug.html>
"Norm Borlaug is a Nobel Laureate and seems to be giving a lot of talks lately."
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions to the green revolution.
Joann Burkholder, North Carolina State
<http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/botany/faculty/jburkholder/jburkholder.html>
"gives great talks about Pfiesteria (the "fish killing"
dinoflagellate), harmful algal blooms, and the impacts of the swine
industry on surrounding rivers and estuaries."
Maarten Chrispeels, University of California, San Diego
<http://biology.ucsd.edu/faculty/chrispeels.html>
"As far as book authors go, Maarten Chrispeel's new book is targeted
for introductory and non-majors college students and might be of
interest to a general public. I haven't seen him speak but I imagine
he's quite good as he's very active in the public education arena."
Aaron Ellison, Harvard Forest, Harvard University
<http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/personnel/web/aellison/>
"mangrove ecology and conservation"
Norman Elstrand U California Riverside
<http://www.facultydirectory.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/pub/public_individual.pl?faculty=278>
"gave a nice lecture on the potential for genes to escape from
transgenic crops to wild relatives. This was several years ago and I'm
not sure if he is still doing this work."
Patricia Gensel U North Carolina--Chapel Hill.
<http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/gensel/>
"Her topic will have something to do with Primitive Land Plant
evolution. She is an excellent, engaging speaker, and you will be
pleased with her presentation. She can address a broad audience, and
the topic is one that few will have contact with unless they have taken
comparative plant anatomy or paleobotany. Pat Gensel is
internationally known, was recently the president of the Bot. Soc. of
America, and was my PhD advisor (putting up with me should count for something...)."
Bob Goldberg, UCLA
<http://www.cnsi.ucla.edu/faculty/goldberg_r.html>
"We had Bob Goldberg from UCLA out here giving a similar type of public
lecture and he was wonderful - the crowd was extremely enthusiastic."
Carl Kearns, University of Colorado Boulder
"Carl Kearns (U Col. Bouler) can speak about research in pollination
biology, as well as the importance of pollination in plant conservation
biology. . Other pollination biologists to consider are David Inouye (U
MD), Nick Waser (UC Riverside?) , Mary Price (UC Riverside?), and James
Thompson. They have conducted some fabulous NSF short courses on
teaching pollination biology at RMBL."
Park Nobel, UCLA
<http://164.67.8.83/>
"Park Nobel is awesome!!!! We had him at NMSU a few years ago; he gave
a public level talk in the eve and then an academic level lecture the
next day. He volunteered to lecture on water potential for my plant
physiology class, but our schedules didn't mesh - I think the students
could have really been inspired by him."
Mark Plotkin
<http://www.amazonteam.org/actnew/pub.html>
author of "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice," "Medicine Quest," and, with
Mark Shnayerson, "The Killers Within: The Rise of Deadly Drug-Resistant Bacteria."
Michael Pollan
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/jan-june01/botany_06-29.html>
<http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/12/06_pollan.html>
"You might consider Michael Pollan, whose recent book "The Botany of
Desire" contains lots of things that could spin off into a great
lecture presentation. My understanding is that he has just been
appointed to a position in Journalism at U. Cal/Berkeley. I have no
idea what his speaking skills might be, but he writes very well."
"How about Michael Pollan, the NY Times reporter who wrote "the Botany
of Desire"? I just read the book, and it's pretty good. It's about how
plants have used people over time to become successful species. He
covers apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes."
Peter Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden
<http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/raven.shtml>
"I strongly recommend Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden and one of the world's foremost experts on tropical botany and
conservation. He is a very dynamic speaker and has written several
books. Read more about him and get his contact information at http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/raven.shtml
Alex Wiedenhoeft
<http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/WoodID/idfact.html>
<http://www.sciencenews.org/20020921/bob8ref.asp>
"Alex Wiedenhoeft of the US Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI,
with the topic being forensic botany. Science News had an article not
too long ago. "
_____________________________
Dr. Katherine M. Schmid
Dept. of Biological Sciences
Butler University
4600 Sunset Ave.
Indianapolis IN 46208
317-940-9956
kschmid at butler.edu
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