Sandra Knapp

Sandra Diane Knapp (born 1956) is a botanist. She is Head of the Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London. She oversaw the Flora Mesoamericana inventory of Central American plants.^[1]

Knapp has a B.A. in botany from Pomona College (1978) and a Ph.D. from Cornell University (1986). Her main research interest is "the megadiverse genus Solanum, which contains potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants and is one of only a handful of flowering plant genera with more than 1000 species".^[2]

She is a trustee of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature^[3] and a member of the Advisory Board for National Geographic's Global Exploration Fund.^[4]

In October 2014 she appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity. Her hypothetical donation to this fictional museum was the South American freeze-dried potato product Chuño.^[5] In Natural History Heroes, a series collaborating between Radio 4 and the NHM, she chose "Miss - not Dr - Alice Eastwood". Eastwood (1859-1953) was a self-taught botanist of the Western United States.

References

1. Dr Sandra Knapp at the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
2. "Dr Sandra Knapp". Staff Directory. Natural History Museum. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
3. "Dr Sandra Knapp". International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
4. "Sandra Knapp, Botany". Global Exploration Fund. National Geographic.
5. "The Museum of Curiosity: Series 7 Episode 2". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
6. "Author Query for 'S.Knapp'". International Plant Names Index.

External links

• Dr Sandra Knapp at the Natural History Museum, London