Peter H Raven

Peter H. Raven, a botanist who created the concept of coevolution and whose hand guided the noted Missouri Botanical Garden for more than 39 years, is the George Engelmann Professor of Botany Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. Raven is a staunch advocate of conservation and biodiversity. His early career focused on the biology of Onagraceae, known broadly as evening primrose, as well as on biogeography, folk taxonomy, and pollution studies. He published an influential paper in 1964, co-authored with biologist Paul Ehrlich, in the journal Evolution, which first introduced the term and concept of “coevolution.” Coevolution is the process through which changes in one species — or a unit at another level of biological organization — influence the evolution of another. An example would be the ongoing evolutionary partnership between flowering plants and pollinating insects. Raven was born in Shanghai in 1936 and raised in San Francisco. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957 and a doctorate in botany from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1960. He became the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1971, gaining the title of president and director in 2006. Over the course of his tenure, he guided the institution as it became a world-class center for botanical research, education, and horticultural display. He has written numerous books and papers, including the popular textbooks “Biology of Plants” and “Environment,” both with co-authors. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 1985 and the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor, in 2001. He was named by Time magazine a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999 and has held leadership positions in numerous scholarly societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, and the American Institute of Biological Sciences.