| Intro | American botanist (born 1947) |
| A.K.A. | V.A.Funk, Vicki Funk |
| Is |
Scientist Botanist |
| From | United States of America |
| Type | Science |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | 1947, Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky, U.S.A. |
| Age: | 73 years |
Vicki Funk (born 1947) is a Senior Research Botanist and Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She is known for her work on thistles and sunflowers, and for her work collecting Compositae, Bryophytes, Pteridophytes and Spermatophytes.
Biography
Funk studied Biology and History at Murray State University in Kentucky and received her B.S. in 1969. In 1975, she received an M.S. in Biology in 1975 where her thesis was A Floristic and Geologic Survey of Selected Seeps of Calloway County, KY. In 1980, she graduated from the Ohio State University with a Ph.D. writing her thesis on The Systematics of Montanoa Cerv. (Asteraceae). In 1981, she was a postdoctral intern at the New York Botanical Garden.
Funk’s research includes detailing evolutionary relationships and history using plant DNA. Funk co-discovered the critically endangered Bidens Meyeri in Rapa Iti, Tahiti. Funk’s work shows that this Bidens species may represent the end of migration of the plant from North American to Tahiti.
Since 1988, she has served as Head of the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield program (BDG). She is also an adjunct professor at George Mason University and Duke University.