The Missouri Botanical Garden announced that UMSL alum Lúcia G. Lohmann will serve as its next president, beginning Jan. 2. Lohmann completed her PhD in biology with an emphasis in ecology, evolution and systematics from UMSL in 2003. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Kwarta/Missouri Botanical Garden)
University of Missouri–St. Louis alum Lúcia G. Lohmann is set to become the eighth president of the Missouri Botanical Garden and will be the first woman to hold that title, the Garden announced on Monday.
Lohmann, who currently serves as a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and director of the University and Jepson Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley, is scheduled to assume her new role on Jan. 2, when she’ll succeed retiring President Peter Wyse Jackson.
“I relate deeply to the Garden’s mission ‘to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life,’ as this reflects my own purpose in life,” Lohmann said in a press release announcing her appointment. “Assuming the presidency at the Garden is a homecoming for me, full circle. I lived around 300 feet from the Garden for eight years during graduate school and obtained an exceptional botanical education here.”
A native of Brazil, Lohmann first came to St. Louis to study in UMSL’s Department of Biology in 1996 after earning a bachelor’s degree in botany at the University of São Paulo. She studied ecology, evolution and systematics, focusing on the biogeography and evolutionary history of the trumpet-creeper plant family, with support from what was then called UMSL’s Center for Tropical Ecology, now the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center.
The center, established in 1990, is a partnership between UMSL, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. It aims to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss through community education, research and the training of students such as Lohmann, who then take on decision-making positions in regions and countries where biodiversity is threatened.
Professor Emerita Patricia Parker and alum Lúcia G. Lohmann first met when Parker joined the UMSL faculty in 2000, when Lohmann was a doctoral student. Their paths crossed again in the fall of 2022 when both were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (Photo courtesy of Patricia Parker)
Patricia Parker, a professor emerita in the Department of Biology and a former Harris Center director, remembers encountering Lohmann as a student when Parker first arrived at UMSL in 2000.
“In one of our in-house seminars, she gave an explanation of why understanding the systematics or deep history of relationships of lineages of a particular group of plant species can help our broader understanding of the evolution of particular physiological and morphological traits,” Parker said.
Parker recalled being impressed with how fascinating Lohmann made the discussion and told her so at the end of the session.
Lohmann completed her PhD at UMSL in 2003 but remained in St. Louis an additional year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Garden’s Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development.
She returned to Brazil in 2004 after receiving her first full-time faculty appointment in the Department of Botany at her alma mater in São Paulo. She remained at the university for 19 years and still holds an adjunct faculty position.
Much of her research has focused on neotropical biodiversity, with particular attention to the Amazon basin. She’s been involved in efforts to study and conserve biodiversity worldwide and has served as executive director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and president of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.
In 2021, Lohmann won election as an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Parker was also elected the same year, and their paths crossed at the induction ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2022.
Lohmann joined the faculty at UC-Berkeley in 2023, where she reunited with another UMSL alum and Harris Center associate, Noah Whiteman, a professor of genetics, genomics, evolution and development and the director of the Essig Museum of Entomology.
He offered his congratulations in a social media post on Monday, calling her “a fantastic choice to lead @mobotgarden” and saying he was “So sad to see her go but thrilled for her and the opportunity to lead this remarkable organization.”
A fantastic choice to lead @mobotgarden, my friend and colleague Lucia Lohmann. So sad to see her go but thrilled for her and the opportunity to lead this remarkable organization. https://t.co/VWCo1ZvT6C
— Noah Whiteman (@NKWhiteman) September 10, 2024
There is a great deal of excitement at the Harris Center about her new position.
“I am thrilled that she will be joining the St. Louis community in this important role with the Garden,” said Parker, now a member of the Harris Center’s Leadership Council.
Nathan Muchhala, an associate professor of biology and the co-interim director of the Harris Center, echoed Parker’s sentiments.
“I think she will be excellent as the incoming president of MOBOT, increasing their impacts and scientific profile around the world,” Muchhala said. “It is particularly exciting that this is full circle for her career, in that she obtained her MS and PHD degrees here at UMSL with the Harris Center and its links to MOBOT.”
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