Robert Edward Wyatt

I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and attended high school in Statesville, North Carolina. From the seventh grade, I was committed to become a naturalist and to study native plants. I received my bachelor’s degree in Botany from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and my doctorate, also in Botany with a minor in Zoology, from Duke University. I taught for two years at Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, where I was a Professor of Botany and Ecology for more than twenty years and still retain an adjunct appointment. From 1999 to 2005 I served as the Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station in the mountains of western North Carolina, an interinstitutional center of the University of North Carolina. My faculty appointment was as a Research Professor of Biology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

From the outset, my research interests blended plant evolution, ecology, and systematics to focus on plant reproduction. Over the years I received numerous awards for teaching, as well as research, including my Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled me to produce a book entitled Ecology and Evolution of Plant Reproduction. I was able to travel widely to give lectures, short courses, and do research in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Sweden, Norway, China, and Japan. I trained more than forty graduate students, received millions of dollars in competitive grants, and published more than 150 scientific papers.