Emma Lucy Braun
American botanist and first woman to be elected President of the Ecological Society of America, in 1950 (1889–1971)
Emma Lucy Braun (April 19, 1889 – March 5, 1971) was a prominent botanist, ecologist, and expert on the forests of the eastern United States who was a professor of the University of Cincinnati. She was the first woman to be elected President of the Ecological Society of America, in 1950. She was an environmentalist before the term was popularized, and a pioneering woman in her field, winning many awards for her work.
Life and career
Emma Lucy Braun was born on April 19, 1889, in Cincinnati; she lived in Ohio for the remainder of her life. The daughter of George Frederick and Emma Moriah (Wright) Braun, her early interest in the natural world was encouraged by her parents, who took her and her older sister Annette Frances Braun into the woods to identify wildflowers. Braun's mother even had a small herbarium. In high school, Braun herself began collecting plants for study, the beginning of a huge personal herbarium that she assembled over her lifetime, composed of 11,891 specimens. Her collection became a part of the herbarium at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
Braun studied botany and geology at the University of Cincinnati. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1910, a master's degree in geology in 1912, and a PhD in botany in 1914. In 1912, she studied with Henry C. Cowles; Harris M. Benedict was her dissertation adviser, with additional advice from Nevin M. Fenneman.
The public source identifies “Emma Lucy Braun” as american botanist and first woman to be elected President of the Ecological Society of America, in 1950 (1889–1971). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Emma, Lucy and Braun.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5372895. VIAF identifies the subject as 69227219. The Library of Congress control number is n50043245. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1971, 1950 and 1910.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emma Lucy Braun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.