Beryl B. Simpson

Beryl Brintnall Simpson (April 28th, 1942-) is a professor emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously she was an associate curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in the Department of Botany. She researched tropical botany, focusing on angiosperms found in the American Southwest, Mexico, and Central and South America. She won the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany for her decades of work on the subject.

Beryl Simpson
File:Beryl Simpson accepting the José Cuatrecasas Medal.jpg Beryl Simpson accepts the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany with Laurence J. Dorr (Chair of the Cuatrecasas Medal selection committee).
Born	April 28, 1942 Austin, Texas
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Tropical Botany
Institutions	Harvard University National Museum of Natural History University of Texas at Austin
Alma mater	Harvard University Radcliffe College
Notable awards	Greenman Award (1970), Cooley Award (1971), Asa Gray Award (2003), José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany (2010)
Author abbrev. (botany)	BB Simpson
Spouse	Jack Neff
Children	Jonathan, Meghan

Life and Career

Simpson graduated with an AB, magnum cum laude, from Radcliffe College in 1964. She received her MA in 1967 and her Ph.D. in 1968 from Harvard University. She stayed at Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow until 1970, when she became an Assistant Curator of the Gray Herbarium at Harvard. She then became an Associate Curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History from 1972 to 1977. In 1977 she became a Curator. In 1978 she became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1994 she became the C. L. Lundell Professor of Systematic Botany.

During grade school Simpson was already interested in botany. She would cut seeds and try to create hybrids by pushing two sends together. During high school her interest continued, and her science fair project on "The Economic Aspects of the Rose" cause her to work for Richard Howard at the Botanical Museum at Harvard. for her junior year. Her first year at Radcliffe she took a graduate horticulture class taught by Howard. Her undergraduate advisors included Howard, Richard Schultes, Paul Manglesdorf, and Elso Barghorn.

She did not originally think of going to graduate school, as she thought it cost too much money, but when she found out otherwise she went to Harvard after a great undergraduate record. Her first advisor was Otto Solbrig, but her moved to Michigan. Her next advisor was Reed Rollins. She accepted a postdoc at Harvard with Otto Solbrig after her graduation.

She co-authored a textbook, Plants in our World: Economic Botany with Molly Conner-Ogorzaly which was originally published in 1986. Its fourth edition was published in 2014.

She is married to Jack Neff, an expert on bees native to the American Southwest and South America. Together they have two children Jonathan and Meghan.

Awards and Honors

In 2010 Simpson was the ninth recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany from the Department of Botany and the United States National Herbarium of the Smithsonian Institution. She was recognized for her contributions to the study of tropical botany through her monograph of Krameriaceae and revisions of Andean genera and other tropical groups of plants, her mentorship of many students, and as the director of the University of Texas herbaria.

Simpson won the Asa Gray Award of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) in 2003. This award is given out by the ASPT to people who have accomplished outstanding efforts in education and research into plant taxonomy.

Simpson is a member of many societies and has served in a number of committees and positions. She has been the President of a few societies; In 2001 the Society for Economic Botany, from 1993-1994 she was the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, 1990-1992 the Botanical Society of America, 1984-1986 the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Co-President of the III International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology. She has been an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1994 and the American Society of Naturalists since 1981. From 1993-1995 she was on the Board of Directors for the American Institute of Biological Sciences. She was on the Board of Governors of the US-Mexico Foundation for Science from 1992-2003 and the chairman of the US Committee to the International Union of Biological Sciences from 1986-1988.

Select Publications

• BB Simpson, M Conner-Ogorzaly. 1986. Economic Botany. McGraw-Hill
• JA Tate, BB Simpson. Paraphyly of Tarasa (Malvaceae) and diverse origins of the polyploid species. Systematic Botany, 723-737.
• BB Simpson. 1983. Evolution and diversity of floral rewards. Handbook of experimental pollination biology, 142-159.
• BB Simpson. 1975. Pleistocene changes in the flora of the high tropical Andes. Paleobiology 1 (3), 273-294.
• BB Simpson, JL Neff. 1981. Floral rewards: alternatives to pollen and nectar. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 301-322.
• BB Simpson, J Haffer. 1978. Speciation patterns in the Amazonian forest biota. Annual review of ecology and systematics 9 (1), 497-518.
• OT Solbrig, BB Simpson. 1974. Components of regulation of a population of dandelions in Michigan. The Journal of Ecology, 473-486.
• JL Neff, BB Simpson. 1981. Oil-collecting structures in the Anthophoridae (Hymenoptera): morphology, function, and use in systematics. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 95-123.
• A Weeks, DC Daly, BB Simpson. 2005. The phylogenetic history and biogeography of the frankincense and myrrh family (Burseraceae) based on nuclear and chloroplast sequence data. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution 35 (1), 85-101.
• BB Simpson. 1979. Quaternary biogeography of the high montane regions of South America. The South American herpetofauna: its origin, evolution, and dispersal 157, 188.