Sandra Knapp facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sandra Diane Knapp
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| Born | 1956 (age 68–69) |
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| Employer | Natural History Museum, London |
Sandra Diane Knapp (born in 1956) is an American botanist. A botanist is a scientist who studies plants. She works as a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London. From 2018, she was the president of the Linnean Society of London, a famous group for natural history.
At the Natural History Museum, she helped create the Flora Mesoamericana. This is a huge list of all the plants found in Central America. Sandra Knapp has also written many books about plants and lots of scientific articles. In 2016, she won the Linnean Medal. In 2022, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a big honor for scientists. In 2023, she received the OBE award and the Engler Medal in Gold.
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Education and Learning
Sandra Knapp studied botany at Pomona College, where she earned her first degree in 1978. Later, she got her PhD from Cornell University in 1986. A PhD is a very high university degree.
What Sandra Knapp Studies
Sandra Knapp is an expert in a group of plants called Solanum. This group includes many different types of plants. She studies the Geminata and Dulcamaroid groups within Solanum. She also studies the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and its relatives.
She is also an expert on other plants in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). This family includes plants like Nicotiana (tobacco plants).
Plant Collecting and Research
Sandra Knapp has traveled to Central and South America to collect plants. She collected plants for places like the Missouri Botanical Garden and Cornell University.
Since 1992, she has been a scientist in the botany department at the Natural History Museum in London. She does fieldwork, which means she goes out to find and study plants. She also works in the herbarium, which is like a library for dried plant samples.
She helps with a big project called the Planetary Biodiversity Inventory project Solanum. This project aims to map all the nightshade plants around the world. She also works on a project to understand how Nicotiana plants have changed over time.
Sandra Knapp is an editor for the Flora Mesoamericana series. This project lists all the plants found in Mesoamerica, a region in Central America.
Books and Writing
Sandra Knapp has written many books about plants and exploring nature. She has also written over 200 scientific articles. Her book Potted Histories was very popular. The French version of this book, Le Voyage Botanique, won an award in 2004. This award is called the Prix Pierre-Joseph Redouté.
She has also named many new plant species, especially in the nightshade family. She even named some passion flowers with another scientist, James Mallet. One of these, Passiflora macdougaliana, was named after a passion flower expert. In return, that expert named a passion flower, Passiflora sandrae, after Sandra Knapp!
Important Groups and Societies
Sandra Knapp is part of several important groups. She helps decide who gets awards for new ideas in science. She is also on a committee for the Shenzhen Declaration for Plant Sciences.
In 2011 and 2017, she led committees at big international plant congresses. These committees made important changes to the rules for naming plants, algae, and fungi. These changes made it easier to publish names online and find plant names.
In 2018, Sandra Knapp became the president of the Linnean Society of London. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sharing Science with Everyone
Sandra Knapp loves to share her knowledge about plants with the public. She has been on many radio shows.
- In 1999, she talked about her book Footsteps in the Forest: Alfred Wallace in the Amazon on BBC World Service's Science in Action.
- In 2013, she discussed Alfred Russel Wallace, a famous naturalist, on BBC Radio 3's Night Waves.
- In 2014, she explained photosynthesis on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time. Photosynthesis is how plants make their own food using sunlight.
- In 2014, she was a guest on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity. She joked about donating a South American freeze-dried potato product called Chuño.
- In 2015, she talked about her hero, botanist Alice Eastwood, on a Radio 4 series.
- In 2017, she discussed Carl Linnaeus, who created the system for naming living things, on BBC World Service's The Forum.
- In 2019, she appeared on In Our Time again, this time to talk about hybrids (mixtures of different species).
Awards and Honors
Sandra Knapp has received many awards for her work.
- In 2016, she won the Linnean Medal from the Linnean Society, sharing it with Georgina Mace.
- In 2009, she received the Peter Raven Outreach Award for sharing science with the public. She also got the John Burnett Medal.
- Both University College London and Stockholm University have given her honorary professorships. This means they recognize her as a professor, even if she doesn't teach there full-time.
- In 2022, she won the David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration.
- Also in 2022, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 2023, Sandra Knapp was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This award was for her great work in botany and for helping people understand science. In the same year, she received the Engler Medal in Gold. This award celebrates her amazing contributions to studying and classifying plants, algae, and fungi. She will receive this medal in July 2024.
See also
In Spanish: Sandra Diane Knapp para niños
- Category:Taxa named by Sandra Knapp
