Felisa Smith, professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, has been named president-elect of the International Biogeography Society. The society, founded in 2001, is the world’s primary forum for biogeographers. The organization works to understand the role of historical factors in shaping biodiversity and develop predictive capacitates for gauging how biodiversity will respond to our rapidly changing world.
In accepting the appointment, Professor Smith stated: “I look forward to helping guide our rapidly growing field and increasing our visibility with both the public and policymakers. In this era of environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, interdisciplinary and synthetic disciplines like biogeography provide unique insights into the processes underlying much of ecosystem structure and function.”
Professor Smith’s research is focused on examining factors influencing body size across both ecological and evolutionary time. Her research aims to understand why organisms are the size they are and what the ecological and evolutionary consequences are of being a certain size.
Dr. Smith is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, where she majored in biology. She holds a master’s degree in education and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of California, Irvine.