Pamela S. Soltis

Professor Pam Soltis, together with her life partner Professor Doug Soltis, has made fundamental contributions to elucidating the phylogenetic relationships of flowering plants, under the rubric of a multi-pronged project - the Tree of Life. They have uncovered the genetic bases of floral development and revealed the great importance of polyploidy in plant evolution. They have used population genetic tools to crystallize understanding of historical dimensions of plant communities in North America. At present, she is developing a new field of 'molecular floristics,' which starts with multispecies samples and builds up to ecological niche models and phylogenetic trees for entire floras.