IMA Medals

Three IMA Medals were presented by IMA President John W. Taylor at the Closing Plenary Session of IMC10 in Bangkok on 8 August 2014.

Ainsworth Medal: David L. Hawksworth

The Ainsworth Medal is awarded to an individual for recognition of extraordinary service to world mycology, as exemplified by the 2014 recipient.

David is renowned for his research on lichens and air pollution, estimating the true number of fungal species, and lichenicolous fungi. He has wide interests in ascomycete systematics and fungal nomenclature, and has served world mycology as Director of the International Mycological Institute, President of the British Mycological Society, Secretary-General and President of the International Mycological Association, founding Chair of the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi, and, now, as Editor-in-Chief of IMA Fungus. Among his many other honours are: Commander of the British Empire (CBE), Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society, Acharius Medal of the International Association for Lichenology, an honorary doctorate from the University of Umeå, and the Josef Adolf von Arx Award of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.

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David l. Hawksworth

De Bary Medals

The de Bary Medal is awarded to an individual who has made outstanding, career contributions to mycological research, and two awards were made on this occasion.

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Meredith Blackwell

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Robert A. Samson

Meredith Blackwell

Meredith is well known for her research on the diversity of beetle-associated fungi, but her most significant contribution may have been her initiation of the National Science Foundation (USA)-sponsored, Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life project that has propelled evolutionary mycology for more than the past decade. She is known for her teaching, having co-authored a most influential mycological textbook (Introductory Mycology, 4th edn, 1996) and received the Mycological Society of America’s, Weston Teaching Award. Meredith has served as President of the Mycological Society of America, and of the International Mycological Association. Among her many other honours are: Distinguished Mycologist of the Mycological Society of America, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Centenary Fellow of the British Mycological Association, and the only mycologist in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She recently retired from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Robert A. Samson

Robert (“Rob”) may be best known for research on the polyphasic systematics of Aspergillus and Penicillium, however, his breadth of mycological research is far greater than these two genera. For example, his text on food and airborne fungi (just one of his 41 books) is in its eighth edition, has sold more than 11,000 copies, and has been translated into several Asian languages. It has been cited more than 1000 times, and his nearly 400 other publications have been cited more than 15,000 times. Rob has served as Secretary-General of the International Union of Microbiological Societies and, is currently Editor-in-Chief of Studies in Mycology. Among his many other honours are: recipient of the USFCC/J. Roger Porter award by the American Society of Microbiology, and election to Honorary Memberships in the Hungarian Society for Microbiology and the Mycological Society of America. He is based at the CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

IMA Fellows

The creation of the new category of IMA Fellows was announced in IMA Fungus 4(2): (40) (December 2013), along with protocols for nomination and election.

Fellows shall be mycologists who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of mycology at an international level, through service to the IMA, its Regional Committees, organization of international meetings, or otherwise as the Award Committees deem appropriate.

IMA President John Taylor announced the election of nine founding Fellows by the IMA Executive Committee in order to launch the category, and stressed that this election recognizes both their research excellence and service to global mycology.

Meredith Blackwell

Anthony J.F. Griffiths

Nils Hallenberg

I. Brent Heath

Cletus (“Clete”) P. Kurtzman

Franz Oberwinkler

Leif Ryvarden

Gioconda San-Blas

Chiryathumadom V. Subramanian

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Top (left to right): Meredith Blackwell, Anthony J.F. Griffiths, Nils Hallenberg, I. Brent Heath and Cletus (“Clete”) Kurtzman. Bottom (left to right): Franz Oberwinkler, Leif Ryvarden, Gioconda San-Blas, and Chiryathumadom V. Subramanian.

IMA Young Mycologist Awards

IMC9 (Edinburgh) 2010

The IMC9 Awards, which were announced after the Edinburgh Congress, were formally presented at IMC10 by IMA President, John Taylor.

Ethel Mary Doidge Medal (African Regional Mycological Member Organization): Marieka Gryzenhout.

Keisuke Tubaki Medal (Asian Regional Mycological Member Organization: Lei Cai.

Daniel McAlpine Medal (Australasian Regional Mycological Member Organization): Ceri Pearce.

Elias Magnus Fries Medal (European Regional Mycological Member Organization): Cécile Gueidan.

Carlos Luis Spegazzini Medal (Latin American Regional Mycological Member Organization): Luís Fernando Pascholati Gusmão.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller Medal (North American Regional Mycological Member Organization): Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Arnold.

Citations for these medals, along with photographs of the recipients, were published in IMA Fungus 2(1): (52)–(53) (December 2011) and 3 (1): (25) (June 2012).

IMC10 (Bangkok) 2014

Ethel Mary Doidge Medal (African Regional Mycological Member Organization): Nourou S. Yorou.

Nourou trained under Reinhard Agerer in Munich. His research concerns the biology, taxonomy, ethnomycology, functional ecology, and conservation of macromycetes in tropical ecosystems, and also the ecology, distribution, and phylogenetic relationships within Thelephorales. Now one of the most active mycological ambassadors in West Africa, he has secured mycological capacity building projects, and sees himself as an example of “Mycological Brain Gain”, using European collaborations to support exchange visits by young African mycologists.

Keisuke Tubaki Medal (Asian Regional Mycological Member Organization): Guanghua Huang.

Guanghua Huang, a recipient of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) “Hundred-Talent Program” in 2012, investigates how environmental factors regulate pathogenesis and sexual reproduction in Candida albicans. He was recently involved in the discovery of a novel morph, the “grey” phenotype, and white-opaque switching in MTL heterozygotes of C. albicans. His laboratory is providing insights into how this fungus adapts to the host environment and causes infections.

Daniel McAlpine Medal (Australasian Regional Mycological Member Organization): Sandra Abell-Davis.

Sandra completed her PhD in 2008 on how the distribution of hypogeous fungi determines the habitat restriction of an endangered fungus-eating marsupial, Bettongia tropica. Since then she has been employed as a lecturer at James Cook University teaching plant sciences and ecology while she has established a research group with a special focus on tropical mycological ecology. Current funded projects include: the significance of mammal dispersal for ectomycorrhizal fungi relating to the ecology of B. tropica, and the diversity of Cordyceps s. lat. insect pathogenic fungi, endophytic fungi, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the wet tropics of Australia.

Elias Magnus Fries Medal (European Regional Mycological Member Organization): Alison Bennett.

Alison has undertaken pioneering research on arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal modification of interactions between plants and insects, which has led to her being nominated for international awards, and featured in the popular press. She has been involved in organizing international meetings, and is much sought after as a speaker. She currently has projects and collaborations running on three continents (Europe, North America, and Australia), as well as on-going studies on multiple sites in Europe.

Carlos Luis Spegazzini Medal (Latin American Regional Mycological Member Organization): Olinto Liparini Pereira.

Olinto obtained masters and doctoral degrees from the (Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), Brazil in 2001 and 2006, respectively. In 2006 he became a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology in UFV. His research has focussed on the systematics of tropical plant pathogenic fungi, etiology of tropical plant diseases, systematics of orchid-associated fungi, and plant-associated fungal biodiversity in different Brazilian ecosystems. Since 2009 he has been supported by a scholarship for research productivity by the Brazilian agency CNPq, and is increasingly sought as an editor.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller Medal (North American Regional Mycological Member Organization): Peter G. Kennedy

Peter studied for his PhD and undertook post-doctoral training at the University of California Berkeley with Tom Bruns. He was a member of the faculty at Lewis & Clark College for six years before moving to the University of Minnesota in 2013. His work has focused primarily on biotic and abiotic factors controlling ectomycorrhizal fungal community structure at a range of spatial scales.

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Nourou S. Yorou

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Guanghua Huang

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Sandra Abell-Davis

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Alison Bennett

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Olinto Liparini Pereira

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Peter G. Kennedy

Birthday Greetings

“CV” Subramanian’s 90th, 11 August 2014

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Chirayanthumadom Venkatachalier Subramanian, the second President of the IMA serving from 1977–1983, celebrated his 90th birthday in Chennai on 11 August 2014. “CV”, or “CVS” to his Indian colleagues, was a specialist in hyphomycetes whose enthusiasm was enhanced by contact with Edmund W. Mason at the then Commonwealth Mycological Institute in Kew in 1950–51, on which he later reminisced (Aitchison & Hawksworth 1993), and he retained a close association with the Institute personally, and through his students, for the next four decades. In addition to his monumental 930-page Hyphomycetes: an account of Indian species, except Cercosporae (Subramanian 1971) and subsequent overview of their biology and ecology (Subramanian 1983), he was deeply interested in their classification and links with sexual morphs, and contributed to key international meetings on these topics in the 1970s. “CV” has had an enormous influence on the development of mycology in India through his campaigning for the recognition of its applied importance, meeting with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, launching the journal Kavaka (Sanskrit for “fungus”), in starting the IMA’s Committee for Asia, and stimulating a generation of mycologists passing through the Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany in the University of Madras, Chennai, and attending numerous conferences and workshops.

On his birthday, the Mycological Society of India, which he had founded in 1973, celebrated the occasion with a symposium on a theme close to his heart, the “Biology and Application Potential of Fungi”. Held in the Centre he used to lead in Chennai, where he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, it was clearly a most joyous occasion to judge from photographs posted on the Society’s website (www.fungiindia.co.in/). It is clear from the photographs that “CV” retains his infectious smile and enthusiasm, and the shirt he wore for the occasion (pictured), that he remains a campaigner and teacher. He must be gratified to have witnessed the huge expansion of mycology in Asia that has occurred over the last half-century, and his role in planting seeds of this in the region should never be forgotten. His achievements so far also show just how much can be achieved by just one inspired and dedicated individual.

The IMA adds its greetings to “CV” at this special time, and also to his wife “Lakshmi”, and is pleased to have been able to recognize him as one of the Association’s founding Fellows this year (see p. (46)).

A detailed tribute to “CV” appeared in the “Living Legends in Indian Science” section of Current Science (Bhat et al. 2014), and another in Kavaka (Bhat & Vittal 2014). D. Jayarama Bhat is thanked for supplying information about this important event.

In Memoriam

David John Galloway (1942–2014)

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It is with deep regret that we have to report David’s untimely death on 6 December 2014. Born in Invercargill on the South Island of New Zealand on 7 May 1942, he obtained a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Otago in 1972, but was destined to become one of the world’s most respected lichenologists. In order to get to grips with the New Zealand lichen biota, he soon realized he needed the key collections in Europe, and from 1973–94 he was based at The Natural History Museum in London, in a variety of capacities and alongside Peter W. James, who died earlier in the year (see IMA Fungus 5 (1): (14)–(15), June 2014). After returning to New Zealand, he became associated with Landcare Research in Dunedin, from which he formally retired in 2004.

His name will live on particularly for his meticulous monograph of the lichen biota of his homeland (Galloway 1985, 2007), which was backed by numerous research papers alone and with colleagues around the world. Pseudocyhellaria was an abiding interest, not least for its fascinating terpenoid chemistry, and he produced a series of detailed treatments of the Southern Hemisphere species. The early history of lichenology was also an enduring fascination, which often entailed his locating and transcribing early 19th century correspondence.

David served as President of the International Association for Lichenology (IAL) for 1987–1992, and was awarded the prestigious Acharius Medal of the IAL in 2008. The esteem in which he was held is evidenced in the many tributes included in a 603 page Festschrift volume produced for his 65th birthday (Kärnefelt & Thell 2007); that work includes a full catalogue of his publications from 1964–2006.

David is survived by his wife Patricia, and the thoughts of all David’s friends and colleagues will be with her at this difficult time.