I grew up in the Netherlands in a plant-loving environment, on a flower nursery (no, no tulips). This early exposure may have sparked my interest in botany and ecology, making me decide to study biology from an early age. I eventually did this at the University of Wageningen and never regretted it. Bryophytes explicitly came…
I grew up in a relatively small village in the western part of the Madrid mountains (Spain) where I lived with my parents and my brother. From a young age, I enjoyed spending time outdoors. I remember spending entire afternoons in the garden and going on field trips almost every weekend with my parents, who…
I was born in 1944. As a three-month-old baby I “witnessed” the landing of airborne troops near Arnhem. Our region was then evacuated. When return was allowed in 1945 the village was ruined, plundered, vandalized and many houses were burned down. My parents lost most of their biological books and collections (both were biologist and…
I grew up in Rotterdam, a large modern city and industrial area in the Netherlands. Luckily, I lived near some parks and lakes so I could escape into green areas most of the time, and I would also often venture into nature areas further afield, particularly with my father, who had studied biology. When I…
I was born in Siberia, in the city of Irkutsk located not far away from Lake Baikal. I am the second-generation botanist in my family. My mother, being a post-graduate student in botany, back in the 1960s, brought me to my first “scientific” expedition. It was on Lake Baikal, and I was two years old….
I am from India. I grew up in Kurukshetra, a city located in the north Indian state of Haryana. My alma mater is Kurukshetra University where I graduated, completed post graduate studies and was awarded my PhD. I must admit here that during my graduate days I was reluctant to study cryptogams, but gradually, I…
I was born in Newcastle, New South Wales Australia. I became interested in bryophytes during my third year Botany studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, with lectures from Tony Martin. I was intrigued at their dominant haploid generation, enabling, as I thought, a fairly direct influence of their environment on their growth. My fourth…
I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on the central prairies of North America and spent a lot of my summers in the boreal forests of Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. The bryophytes and lichens around me were inspiring and fascinating, but my love of canoe tripping brought me to limnology and phycology during my BSc…
I was born in Moscow in a family of researchers. My mom was a geomorphologist, and my dad was a geobotanist. I had my first field work experience when I was 7 years old, when my parents took me on an expedition to the Khantayka River, a tributary of the Yenisei, one of the largest…
I grew up on the shores of Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota and spent many happy hours exploring the woods near our home. Both my parents were biologists, and their enthusiasm for nature and science was contagious. At Carleton College, I was inspired by charismatic botanist William H. Muir ‘s emphasis on non-flowering plants. At the…