Sean W. Graham. Professor, Department of Botany, University of British Columbia; Research Director, UBC Botanical Garden & Centre for Plant Research, 2006-onwards; Associate Director, Biodiversity Research Centre, 2010-2013. Assistant Professor & Curator, University of Alberta, 1999-2003. Research Associate, University of Washington, 1996-1998. PhD, University of Toronto, 1996. BSc, University of St. Andrews, 1989.

Teaching interests: I co-teach a large undergraduate course at UBC on vascular plants that introduces our students to plant diversity and the fundamentals of plant structure and reproduction. I also teach an undergraduate course in communicating science, and co-teach a graduate-level phylogenetics workshop. I actively incorporate undergraduate researchers in ongoing molecular and herbarium-related research projects in my research group.

Research Interests and student training: My research program focuses on characterizing plant biodiversity from molecular/genomic and evolutionary perspectives, including inference of deep phylogenetic relationships in land plants, and comparative genomics of plastid genomes. Ongoing projects with my graduate students include studies on mycoheterotrophic plants, the flora of British Columbia, and phylogenetic/phylogenomic studies at various levels of land-plant phylogeny from bryophytes to angiosperms. My lab team currently consists of one undergraduate Honours student, two MSc students and four PhD students.

BSA Service: I have been on the BSA publications committee since 2012, and have taken an interest in our publication strategy since becoming an Associate Editor at the American Journal of Botany in 2008 (a role I still play). I was a guest co-editor of the journal’s 2009 “Darwin Bicentennial” special issue. I am also the current Director-at-Large, Publications. In this role I chair the BSA publications committee and work with the AJB, APPS and PSB editorial teams on various publications issues (most recently on developing data access policies). Major goals are to increase multiple dimensions of impact for our journals, and to help secure their future in an increasingly difficult publication landscape. I also serve on the AJB publication ethics subcommittee.

Other relevant service: I am also an editor for the Journal of Systematics and Evolution (since 2008), and have served as an associate editor at other several botanical journals (Plant Biology; Canadian Journal of Botany). I served on the board of the Canadian Botanical Conservation Network from 2007-2015, and the ‘Canadensys’ steering committee (from 2007; www.canadensys.net). I was the local organizer for ASPT at the ‘Botany 2008’ meeting at UBC, and have organized symposia at international meetings (Monocots III-V, 2003-2013; several at IBC, 2011).