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Area of FocusAbout Peter's Work
Peter Raven is a botanist and educator concerned with strengthening the worldwide, tropical conservation effort and enhancing biological studies.
A specialist in the biology and classification of the plant family Onagraceae, Raven is active in the study and preservation of Earth’s biological diversity, especially in the tropics. He has done extensive fieldwork in North, Central, and South America and in Australasia. As director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, he has developed the nation’s most comprehensive research program in tropical botany.
Biography
Raven is the Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University, St. Louis. He was a professor at Stanford University prior to accepting the position of director at the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1971. He has also served as a home secretary of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, and chairman of the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. He is the author of numerous publications and co-author of the textbooks, Biology of Plants (7th ed., 2005) and Environment (4th edition, 2005).
Raven received an A.B. (1957) from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. (1960) from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on July 1, 1985
