**W. John Kress**

W. John Kress, PhD, is a Distinguished Scientist and Curator Emeritus in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Co-Chair for the Earth BioGenome Project; and visiting Scholar for Dartmouth College and The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. His research interests include systematic biology: systematics of Heliconia and other Zingiberales, especially with regard to reproductive biology, molecular variation, and cladistic relationships; generic concepts in the Zingiberales; phylogeny and evolution of the monocotyledons; evolutionary biology: plant reproductive biology, the evolution of breeding and pollination systems, and genetic diversity and speciation in tropical angiosperms; conservation biology: forest fragmentation, gene flow, and genetic variation in tropical and temperate plant species.
