NEWS

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s North Carolina Botanical Garden has named Alan S. Weakley curator of the UNC Herbarium.

Weakley’s appointment is effective June 15. He succeeds Jim Massey, who retired after 30 years of service.

The UNC Herbarium, founded in 1908 by William C. Coker, is the largest museum collection of botanical specimens in the Southeast and is a fundamental resource for studies of plant identification and distribution in North Carolina and the region. Administration of the UNC Herbarium was transferred from the department of biology to the North Carolina Botanical Garden in 2000.

Weakley earned a bachelor’s degree in botany and comparative literature from UNC. After graduate studies at Duke University, he began a career in 1984 as a botanist and ecologist with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, part of the Division of Parks and Recreation within the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. His responsibilities included the inventory, assessment and protection of rare flora, high quality natural communities and significant natural areas of North Carolina.

In 1994, The Nature Conservancy hired Weakley as senior regional ecologist for the southeastern United States, where he worked to develop the southeastern portion of the U.S. National Vegetation Classification.

In 1999, Weakley was promoted to the position of chief ecologist, overseeing the international development of community classifications to serve conservation assessments, natural resource management and the setting of conservation priorities. In the same year, NatureServe was created to house the conservancy’s biodiversity inventory and database functions. Weakley has been the chief ecologist for NatureServe for the past two years.

Over the past two decades, Weakley has published frequently on the flora, plant systematics, natural communities and conservation needs of North Carolina and the southeastern United States. He also has started projects to develop new and revised floristic manuals covering portions of the mid-Atlantic and southeastern states.

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Photo URL: www.unc.edu/news/pics/staff/weakley_alan.jpg

News Services contact: Deb Saine at (919) 962-8415