Lúcia Lohmann will become the first woman to be president of the Missouri Botanical Garden in January.
Lohmann grew up in Brazil and first came to St. Louis to complete her master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She also was a postdoctoral fellow at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Since then, Lohmann has become an internationally recognized botanist. She is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and an adjunct professor at the University of São Paulo. She is executive director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and president of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.
St. Louis Public Radio’s Kate Grumke sat down with Lohmann to learn why she wanted to come back to St. Louis and the Garden. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Kate Grumke: I read that you lived just a few hundred feet from the Missouri Botanical Garden when you were here. What impression did it make on you back then?
Lúcia Lohmann: It was lovely. I used to stay really late doing my graduate work, so I have these memories of crossing the garden late at night and going back to my apartment. It was really wonderful that the garden provided such incredible structure for students. I lived in an apartment that was owned by the garden, and it was so welcoming and I just loved it.
Grumke: Many St. Louisans don't realize how key this city is in plant science, and the Missouri Botanical Garden is a big part of that. How do you think the garden could further strengthen St. Louis' influence in botany?
Lohmann: The Missouri Botanical Garden really is this amazing, world-class institution in botany. It is one of the largest botanical gardens in the world. So imagine, as a 17-year-old back in Brazil, I knew about the Missouri Botanical Garden and this is where I wanted to come. So in some ways, the Missouri Botanical Garden might even be better known globally than it is locally.
The garden is, for the local community, this amazing place where people come to celebrate, where they come to learn about plants, where they come to enjoy themselves. And it's important to keep in mind that this connection between science and the garden itself and the horticultural displays is really crucial.
Grumke: How will climate change affect the work of the garden in the coming years?
Lohmann: Climate change and biodiversity loss really are some of the greatest challenges of our times, so while I start to think about the next steps and our actions, I'm really thinking about what is the science that we need to do now that will help us really mitigate some of the challenges 30 years from now?
We really need research that starts with the basics, so documenting biodiversity that goes all the way to finding solutions. We need to understand the history of plants to understand, how did plants form over the last several million years? How did they adapt to climate change in the past? So we can use this information to be better prepared for the future.
And at the same time, of course, we want to save the endangered and threatened species and make sure they're growing in our displays so we can have these species for the future.
Grumke: What are you most looking forward to about this new role?
Lohmann: I keep coming back to the welcoming nature of St Louis. I just love the people and also love the museums, love the symphony, love the Cardinals, love Ted Drewes, love the food. It's just a place that feels like home.
And I am especially looking forward to thinking about, how can we advance the mission of the garden while really contributing to solving the climatic and environmental crisis that we have ahead? Very few institutions in the world have the ability that the garden has to contribute to mitigating those challenges.
Hear Kate Grumke’s conversation with Lúcia Lohmann on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
