honorary members
2024: Linda Geiser
Linda Geiser is the National Program Leader for Air Resource Management at the U.S. Forest Service, where she has led efforts to integrate ecological monitoring into forest management and environmental policy. She earned an M.S. in Soil Science and a Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from the University of California, Davis, and completed postdoctoral work in community ecology and statistics at Oregon State University. Her work focuses on the use of lichens as biomonitors to assess air quality, climate change, and biodiversity in forest ecosystems. Over her career, she has developed national-scale methodologies for collecting, analyzing, and applying ecological data, and has played a key role in advancing the science behind critical loads of atmospheric deposition in the United States. In addition to leading interagency collaborations, she has contributed to the creation of tools and data platforms that help land managers, policymakers, and scientists better understand the impacts of pollution on natural systems.
2024: Giacomo Lorenzini
Giacomo Lorenzini is a Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Pisa, Italy, and an expert in plant-environment interactions, with a special focus on air pollution. Since 2000, he has conducted research on how air pollutants affect the physiology, productivity, and overall health of vascular plants in agricultural and forested ecosystems. His work bridges the fields of plant pathology, environmental toxicology, and applied ecology, and has included leadership of several national research projects in plant health under environmental stress. Lorenzini has chaired and contributed to numerous national and international scientific conferences, helping to shape academic discourse on plant responses to pollution. His current research centers on oxidative stress in plants and the development of novel biomonitoring tools to evaluate air quality. In the classroom, he teaches courses on plant pathology and the effects of environmental stressors, mentoring the next generation of scientists in Italy and beyond.
2023: Pier Luigi Nimis
Pier Luigi Nimis is a senior professor of botany (retired in 2023) at the University of Trieste, Italy, and a leading figure in lichenology and plant ecology. His career began with multivariate approaches to mapping plant distributions, particularly in Boreal and Arctic ecosystems. Following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, he led national programs monitoring radioactive contamination in mushrooms, forest plants, and mosses. His later research focused on lichens as sensitive indicators of air pollution and climate, contributing to the development of bioindicator guidelines and best practices for assessing environmental health and cultural heritage preservation. Nimis also pioneered the use of web-based identification tools for lichens and collaborated on biodiversity checklists across the Alps, Mediterranean, and Antarctic regions. He served as founding president of the Italian Lichen Society and later as president of the International Association for Lichenology. His many honors include the OPTIMA Silver Medal, the Ferrari-Soave Prize, and the prestigious Acharius Medal. Three genera and eight species have been named in his honor.