PSB 67(3) 2021
BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA’S AWARD WINNERS (PART 2) CHARLES EDWIN BESSEY TEACHINGAWARD (BSA in association with the Teaching Section and Education Committee)
Her extraordinary and innovative approaches to mentoring and teaching are documented in a number of peer-reviewed articles on pedagogy, mentoring and diversity in STEM. In her work, she links the domains of plant science and mentoring while sharing that mentees, like plants, flourish or struggle based on their environment— not as a result of any inherent deficiency.
DR. BERONDA MONTGOMERY MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Montgomery is an outstanding scientist and one of the foremost ambassadors of Botany today. Not only has she made significant and lasting contributions to our understanding of determinants of cyanobacterial cell shape, signaling, and light dependent Physiology but she has also burst onto the scene as a public intellectual and authority on plant science and mentoring. With a huge Twitter following, she engages and challenges us through sharing her science and research on pedagogy through social media, podcasts, online seminars, and special lectures both for her scientific colleagues and for the general public. Beronda is also one of the co-founders of #BlackBotanistsWeek.
Dr. Montgomery has been described as a visionary, an outstanding educator, and an engaging source of inspiration by colleagues and students alike. Her transformative leadership encourages and enables others to become more deeply engaged in teacherscholar outreach and training. As one of her nominators described, “Prof. Montgomery is a giant walking among us. Her scholarship around equity-engaged mentorship has awakened multiple generations of plant scientists of a pathway to do better. She has brought acclaim and welcome attention to plant science, and has forged a unique melding of her science, her advocacy and her teaching…. I can think of no one who better fits the criteria of the Bessey Award or who is more deserving of public recognition for her work on behalf of all of us.”
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