TWO NEW BOARD MEMBERS ADDED TO AAAS ROSTER
December 7, 1999 (Washington, DC)-Peter H. Raven, Ph.D., will become the next president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on February 23, 2000. Raven, the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, is known for his work in understanding plants, conserving natural resources and protecting ecosystems around the world.
Two new members were also elected to four-year terms on the AAAS board: Nina Fedoroff, Ph.D., Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and director, Biotechnology Institute and Life Science Consortium, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and Robert Richardson, Ph.D., F. R. Newman professor and vice provost for research, Cornell University.
Raven is a leading advocate for the preservation of biodiversity, lecturing around the world and writing dozens of books and articles to stop the destruction of the plant kingdom. He predicts that without drastic action, two thirds of the world's 300,000 plant species will be lost during the next century as their habitats are destroyed. Recently Time magazine labeled Raven one of the "Heroes of the Planet" for his work in understanding plants and the environment.
Fedoroff was previously with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the John P. McGovern Science and Society Medal, Sigma Xi, 1997. Richardson won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and vice chair of the U.S. Liaison Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
Raven, who is also the Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University in St. Louis, has focused his research on the systematics, evolution and biogeography of the plant family Onagraceae, which is one of the most thoroughly studied plant famil
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Contact: Lynn Fleetwood
lfleetwo@aaas.org
202-326-6434
American Association for the Advancement of Science
6-Dec-1999