e:mail: jthomass@fhsu.edu or botany@swbell.net
website: www.fhsu.edu/biology/thomasson/botindex.htm

Personal Information:
Birthdate: 6 June 1946                             Citizenship: U.S.

Education:
Fort Hayes State University, B.S. (botany), 1968
Iowa State University, Ph.D. (plant taxonomy, specialization in agrostology), 1974-76

Military Service:
U.S. Army (1969 - 1973), Overseas Service in South Korea (1970-71), Army Air Defense Command and Staff Judge Advocates Office

Adademic Teaching/Research Positions:
Assistant (1976) and Associate (1981) Professor of Biology, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD, 1976-1982

Associate (1982) and Professor (1987) of Botany, Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS, 1982 - 1987, 1991 - present

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Biology,  United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO, 1989 - 1991

Curator, Elam Bartholomew Herbarium, Sternberg Museum of Natural History, 1982 - present

Curator of  Paleobotany, Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS,  1982 - present

Founder/Director, Scanning Electron Microscope Facility, Fort Hays State University, l983 - present

               General Botany (1976 - present)
            Plant Taxonomy (1976 - present)
            Agrostology (1976 - present)
            Dendrology (1982 - present)
              Aquatic Biology (1990 - present)
            Scanning Electron Microscopy (1978 - present)

Other courses I have taught at intervals include Applications of Digital Imaging in the Classroom,  Advanced Agrostology, Field Study of Range Plants, Plant Anatomy, and Paleobotany.

Grants and Contracts:
In addition to minor grants from local and regional sources for my research and teaching activities, I have written and received major grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation (five times), National Geographic Society (three times), and Department of Defense Legacy Program (two times).

Professional Field Experience (Academic):
Since 1968 I have collected and identified numerous plants from a wide variety of taxonomic groups.  Collections were made in various habitats (e.g., deserts, grasslands, forests, marshes and bogs) from Alaska to Florida.  I have considerable expertise and experience with most vascular plants, but I am especially familiar with graminoids (grasses, sedges and rushes).  I am proficient and comfortable working with plants both in the field and laboratory from any region in North America.   

Professional Field Experience (Subcontracting):
I have participated extensively in the field as a subcontracted senior botanist/plant taxonomist for the following private companies:

     Mergen Ecological Delineations, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO:

            1) Rare and Sensitive Plant Surveys, U. S. Forest Service, Black Hills
                    National Forest, South Dakota and Wyoming, June - August 2002, 2003,
                2004, 2005. 

            2) Rare and Sensitive Plants Surveys, U. S. Forest Service, Chippewa
                National Forest, Minnesota, June 2003, 2004, 2005.  Five of my students
                also assisted on this project.

             3) Rare and sensitive Plant Surveys, U. S. Forest Service, Black Hills
                 National Forest, Wyoming, July - August 2006.

     Sustainable Environmental Solutions (SES), Inc., Merriam, KS:

             1) Natural Resources Rangeland Inventory, Kansas and Colorado, June-
                      July 2005.

             2) Natural Resources Rangeland Inventory, Kansas and Colorado, June-
                      July 2006.  Four of my current students are participating on this project.

Selected Publications:
_________.  1978.  Epidermal patterns of the lemma in some fossil and living grasses and their phylogenetic significance.  Science 199: 975-977.

_________.  1979.  Tertiary grasses and other angiosperms from Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado: Biostratigraphy and relationships to living taxa.  Kansas Geological Survey Bulletin 218:1-68.

_________.  1982.  New and clarified plant distribution and occurrence records for South Dakota.  Southwestern Naturalist 27:124.

_________.  1984.  A new record of Melica subulata (Gramineae) from the Northern Black Hills of South Dakota.  American Midland Naturalist 112: 208.

________.  1991.  Sediment-borne "seeds" from Sand Creek, northwestern Kansas:taphonomic significance and paleoecological and paleoenvironmental implications.  Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 85: 213-225.

________.  1994.  Late Cretaceous-Paleocene fossil plants from Scotty’s Palms Local Flora, U.S. Air Force Academy Colorado, p. 21-31 In Vegetation of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Adjacent Regions of the Pike National Forest, El Paso County, Colorado.  U.S. Air Force Academy Press.

________.  2002.  Using digital imaging in classroom and outdoor activities.  American Biology Teacher 64(2):100-106.

________.  2003.  Eleofimbris svensonii (Cyperaceae) from the late Miocene Ogallala Group of western Kansas, Southwestern Naturalist 48(3): 442-444.

(with K. R. Johnson, M. L. Reynolds, and K. W. Werth). 2003.  Overview of the late Cretaceous, early Paleocene, and early Eocene megafloras of the Denver Basin, Colorado.  Rocky Mountain Geology 38(1): 101-120.

________.  2005.  Berriochloa gabeli and Berriochloa huletti (Graminese, Stipeae), two new grass species from the late Miocene Ash Hollow Formation of Nebraska and Kansas.  Journal of Paleontology 79(1):185-199.

________. 2006.  First record of Calochortus apiculatus (Liliaceae) in Wyoming.  Western North American Naturalist 66(2): 251-253.          

Other Publications, Video/CD Productions and Patents:
I published Growing Vegetables in the Great Plains, University Press of Kansas (1991), portions of several other books, and more than 60 articles in professional and popular journals and magazines, including Science, American Journal of Botany, Systematic Botany, American Biology Teacher, National Geographic Research, Metal Finishing, National Gardening Magazine, and others.   I was writer, co-producer, and host of Gardening in the Great Plains, a popular, 15 part series of ½ hour programs on gardening in the Midwest that was aired on public television from 1991 through 1996.  I helped produce and appeared in a segment of a NOVA video production, Buried In Ash, that is aired nationally on public television, and I provided scanning electron microscopy illustrations of plant pollen used in Ice Age Adventures: A Mammoth Mystery, a CD produced by The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota.   Finally, Mr. John Van Dyke and I hold U.S. Utility Patents 5,509,229 and 5,613,320,  Self-Supporting Thermally-Protective Multi-Bag Plant Enclosure, a device designed to allow gardeners to start gardens much earlier in the spring.

Teaching Recognition and/or Awards:
On the basis of my accomplishments in education I was invited to teach at the United States Air Force Academy as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Biology (1989-1991).  At FHSU I was designated a Mortar Board Top Professor (1997) in recognition of my excellence in  classroom teaching.  I was also presented a Teacher Innovator Award (2000) for the innovative use of digital imaging and other computer technology in the classroom and the FHSU College of Health and Life Sciences Scholar Award (2006) for outstanding research and scholarship.

Selected Past and Current M.S. Graduate Students at FHSU:
Burr, Andy.  1998.  A seed bank investigation of the Spring Seep Zone at Haberer’s Salt Marsh.

Vacura, Monty.  2000.  Survey of aquatic macrophytes of Ellis County, Kansas. 

Bohnen, Laura.  2004.  Ecological analysis of the vegetation on the Wilson Reservoir public land area using four environmental variables and species composition.

Thomasson, Scott.  2006.  Mycorrhizal associations in the orchid genus Corallorhiza.

Cooper, Kurtis.  2006.  Systematics of Ulmus pumila, Ulmus rubra, and Ulmus X notha.

Serna, Hector. Current.  Distribution of Calochortus apiculatus in the Black Hills of northeastern Wyoming.

Carrow, Sarah.  Current.  Pollination biology in Calochortus apiculatus.