Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

in 2000. He is currently a professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University (FSU), and has been director of FSU's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium since August 2003. One of his main areas of research is the

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups ...

of Grevilleoideae, a subfamily of Proteaceae. In 2005 he showed the genus ''

Banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' rang ...

'' to be

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

with respect to '' Dryandra'', Collaborating with Australian botanist

Kevin Thiele Kevin R. Thiele is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Western Australia and the director of Taxonomy Australia. He was the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium from 2006 to 2015. His research interests include ...

, he subsequently transferred all ''Dryandra'' taxa to ''Banksia'', publishing over 120 taxonomic names in the process. The change has been adopted by the Western Australian Herbarium, although has met with some controversy. He has previously worked on the

Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), C ...

, which created a repository of annotated high-resolution digital images of plant specimens within the East

Gulf Coastal Plain The Gulf Coastal Plain extends around the Gulf of Mexico in the Southern United States and eastern Mexico. This coastal plain reaches from the Florida Panhandle, southwest Georgia, the southern two-thirds of Alabama, over most of Mississippi, we ...

, a region with a very high diversity of rare and endangered plants.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mast, Austin R. 21st-century American botanists Living people 1972 births Florida State University faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Botanists active in Australia 20th-century American botanists