Thomas Robert Soderstrom

Thomas Robert Soderstrom (9 January 1936 Chicago – 1 September 1987) [1] was an American agrostologist His special field of study was the grass family Gramineae or Poaceae. He was Curator of Grasses at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC for some twenty years.

Cleofe Calderon and Thomas Soderstrom examining bamboo samples in the National Museum of Natural History, 1977

In 1957 Soderstrom graduated from the University of Illinois with a BSc in Biology, and enrolled at the graduate school at Yale University, earning a Master of Science in Biology the following year and a PhD in Botany 1961. He joined the National Museum in 1960 as assistant curator. He became an authority on the taxonomy and biology of bamboos, publishing about 40 titles and undertaking lecture tours in numerous countries, most notably at the 1985 International Bamboo Conference held in Puerto Rico. His field work covered parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Not only was he a founder member of the Association of Tropical Biology, but was also a fellow of the Linnean Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary associate of the Botanical Society of Brazil. Despite poor health he undertook the organising of the First International Grass Symposium held at the Smithsonian in July 1986.[2] A collaborator of his was Cleofé E. Calderón (1929–2007), the Argentinian-born agrostologist.[3]

He is commemorated in Soderstromia, Ilex soderstromii, Anthurium soderstromii, Lessingianthus soderstromii, Vriesea soderstromii, Ouratea soderstromii, Cryptochloa soderstromii, Ocellochloa soderstromii, Poa soderstromii, Raddia soderstromii.