News

An award has been set up to continue the work of the late Dr. Sharon Gray as she was striving to increase opportunities for women in science.

Sharon Gray’s work in Ethiopia is not done.

The 30-year-old and postdoc in the Department of Plant Biology, had gone to the African nation to discuss the start of a plant biology research project. She and others — including Associate Professor Siobhan Brady — were in a car, driving on the outskirts of the capital city, Addis Ababa, on Oct. 4, when a rock came crashing through a window, striking and killing Gray. Brady was not injured.

Dr. Siobhan Brady was recently named HHMI Scholar for 2016-2017. 

Simon Chan, Associate Professor of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis, died on August 22 at the age of 38. He had been suffering from primary sclerosing cholangitis, an autoimmune disorder, and developed complications while awaiting a liver transplant. 

When botanist Katherine Esau died June 4, 1997, at age 99, Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, remembered that she “absolutely dominated the field of plant anatomy and morphology for several decades. She set the stage for all kinds of modern advances in plant physiology and molecular biology.”