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Doug Soltis, Ph.D.
Professor of Botany and Chair
- Systematics
- 220 Bartram Hall
- (352) 273 - 1963
- dsoltis@botany.ufl.edu
Biography
I was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived there until I was 11. The forests of Pennsylvania and adjacent Ohio sparked an early interest in biology and botany. We then moved to Alexandria, Virginia. As a result, I ultimately attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. As fate would have it, the botanists at William and Mary were excellent. I became actively involved in local fieldwork and plant identification. Eventually, this interest turned into an honors project in which I did a floristic study of a large portion of New Kent County, located on the Coastal Plain of Virginia. I attended graduate school at Indiana University, and this is where I first became interested in molecular systematics and population genetics. The use of molecular tools to address questions in evolutionary biology has been a keen interest throughout my career.
I took a faculty position at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and remained there for three years. I became interested in moving to a larger university with more research possibilities and took a position at Washington State University in 1983 and remained there until moving to the University of Florida in 2001.
Much of research is conducted in collaboration with Dr.
Pamela Soltis.
We also collaborate on the basketball court. We still enjoy playing and
do so once a week. Other hobbies include kayaking and fishing.
Education
- B.S. (Biology) College of William and Mary, 1975
- M.A. (Biology) Indiana University, 1977
- Ph.D. (Biology) Indiana University, 1980
- Postdoctoral experience, Botany Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (with Dr. Bruce Bohm), summer 1981
Academic Positions
- Associate Instructor, Indiana University, 1975-1979
- Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1980-1983
- Associate Professor and Professor, Department of Botany, Washington State University 1983-2000
- Professor, Department of Botany, University of Florida, 2001-present
Present Research
Investigation of speciational mechanisms, evolutionary relationships, and character evolution in flowering plants and land plants utilizing a variety of experimental approaches. Current major interests include the study of higher level phylogenetic relationships and character evolution in the angiosperms, floral evolution, the genetic basis of key floral differences in basal angiosperms, the genetic and genomic consequences of polyploid speciation, conservation genetics of rare plant species, and phylogeography.
Present Students
- Monica Arakaki
- Sam Brockington
- Joshua Clayton
- Jin Koh
- Heather Loring
- Mi-Jeong Yoo
Post-Docs
- Sangtae Kim
- Andre Chanderbali
- Jennifer Tate
- Evgeny Mavrodiev
- Matyas Buzgo
- Ann Powell
- Vaughan Symonds
- Micheal Moore
Membership in Professional Organizations:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- American Society of Naturalists
- American Society of Plant Taxonomists
- Botanical Society of America
- Genetics Society of America
- Society for the Study of Evolution
Grants received
The majority of our research support is from the National
Science Foundation. We currently have several ongoing grants, including
the Deep Time Reseearch Coordination
Network and the
Floral Genome Project. Much of our support for conservation
genetics projects comes from Florida Division
of Forestry. More information
can be obtained at the Soltis lab website www.flmnh.ufl.edu/soltislab/
Selected Publications
Please see a current publication listing at the Soltis Lab web site.
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a Question? Contact us.
Last Updated 6/28/05
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