Obituary: Dr. Alan Graham

From: www.alangrahambotanist.com

Alan Graham, PhD. (1934–2021)

Alan was a native of Houston, Texas, who moved north to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, after receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Botany at the University of Texas, supported by a full athletic tennis scholarship. At the University of Michigan, he met and married his wife of over 60 years, Shirley.  Following completion of their PhDs, they spent a post-doctoral year at Harvard University, then moving then to Kent State University, where he held a joint faculty appointment in Botany and Geology for nearly 40 years. He is survived by his wife, son Andrew Graham and daughter-in-law Julia, daughter Alison Graham, son Bruce Graham and granddaughter Kenzie Graham.
 

Alan leaves an exceptional record of success as a teacher and Professor of Botany and Geology at Kent State University, and as a scholar through his internationally recognized research on fossil plants and vegetational history. He published over 200 research papers and authored seven books. Among many awards for his work were: Distinguished Scholar Award, Kent State University; Outstanding Teacher Award from the College of Arts and Sciences Student Advisory Council at Kent State; The Smithsonian Institution Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany; the Asa Gray Medal; the highest award of the American Society of Plant Taxonomy; the Natural History Museum (London)/Marsh Trust Award for Best Earth Sciences Book of the Year, Land Bridges, 2018; and Distinguished Fellow and Merit Award, Botanical Society of America.
 

Alan also leaves a personal legacy to all he knew. He was a loving and generous teacher and father, a mentor to his many students, including over 350 whom he guided through 12 summers of “Biological Field Studies in Mexico and the American West”, a scholar, world traveler, and one who touched lives over many decades with his friendship and erudite humor.

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2021 ASPT Election Results

Dear ASPT members,

On behalf of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, I want to thank all of the members who agreed to run for office this year, and for their willingness to serve ASPT. It is wonderful to have such dedicated members! For the new office holders, we look forward to your ideas, leadership, and teamwork. I also want to thank the Nominations Committee for their work in providing an excellent slate of candidates. Finally, thanks to all the members who voted.

Eric H. Roalson was elected President-Elect

Janelle Burke and Andrew Hipp were elected Council Members-at-Large

•  Total ballots returned: 356

• Total number of eligible voters: 884

• Percent of ballot return: 40.27%

Sincerely,
Wendy Clement
ASPT Secretary

Phylogenomics/evolutionary genomics of gymnosperms

A Postdoctoral Research Fellow position is available in Sergios-Orestis
Kolokotronis' research group at the Department of Epidemiology &
Biostatistics in the School of Public Health and the Institute for Genomic
Health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, NY. The
successful applicant will join a large, collaborative NSF-funded project
to disentangle the genome evolution of gymnosperms, the oldest surviving
lineage of seed plants. Three of the four extant gymnosperm lineages
contain species which Darwin termed "living fossils." These have been
present since the Devonian Era and have survived an incredible range of
climatic changes, mass extinction events, and adaptation challenges. The
genomes of almost all the gymnosperms are extremely large and complex
and have been somewhat refractive to genomic characterization as a
result. Through the use of nanopore sequencing, transcriptomics, and
epigenetics, we have been characterizing the genomes of these species,
asking questions on evolutionary radiations and genome resilience. In this
project, we interact with the genome assembly and annotation group, and
contribute to orthology assessment. We investigate gene family evolution
by adopting macroevolutionary phylogenetic methods, phylotranscriptomics,
as well as natural selection scans. Our wider interests draw from
population genetics, phylogenetics and community ecology, using
bioinformatics and computational biology to understand organismal
diversification and adaptation across landscapes and time scales. Our
group is located in the new Public Health Academic Building on the SUNY
Downstate campus in Central Brooklyn. We interact with a diverse group
of health research investigators in the Institute for Genomic Health,
and through our affiliations in the School of Public Health and the
Division of Infectious Diseases in the College of Medicine. Our lab is
outfitted with an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 instrument for high-throughput
sequencing, and we have been expanding our HPC capacity on site and
on the cloud. HPC access is also available at partner institutions
through the PI. More information can be found at http://kolokolab.org
and https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=u3i_xH4AAAAJ&hl=en.

Candidates should have a doctoral -or equivalent- degree in life
or computational sciences. A training background in bioinformatics,
computational biology, molecular evolution and comparative genomics
is required. A keen interest in plant biology and infectious disease
systems is desirable. The successful candidate must be capable of working
independently in an interdisciplinary, diverse, collaborative environment,
and have strong analytical, quantitative, and English writing skills,
evidenced by scholarly peer-reviewed publications. In addition to
formal collaborations with our partner institutions in this project
(CSHL, NYBG, NYU, AMNH, JHU, Purdue, NY Plant Genomics Consortium),
opportunities exist to branch out in research on genomic epidemiology of
infectious and chronic diseases (funded by NIH and NSF), grant proposal
writing, mentoring of students, and teaching. Salary is commensurate
with experience. Start date is ASAP. Applications should include in
this order: 1) a Statement of Research Interests, 2) a CV, 3) two (2)
manuscripts, and 4) the contact information of 3 referees in a single PDF
file emailed to sok@downstate.edu with this Subject line "Postdoc-NSF
Plants". Referees should be notified that they might be contacted.

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is an affirmative-action,
equal-opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race,
color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, sex, gender
identity or expression, sexual orientation, familial status, pregnancy,
predisposing genetic characteristics, military status, domestic violence
victim status, criminal conviction, and all other protected classes under
federal or state laws. Women, minorities, veterans, individuals with
disabilities and members of underrepresented groups are encouraged to
apply. If you are an individual with a disability and need a reasonable
accommodation for any part of the application process, or in order to
perform the essential functions of a position, please contact Human
Resources at 718-270-3025.