30+ year career
On 4 April 2025, Dr Ilse Breitwieser retired from Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, where she had undertaken various roles over her 30+ year career, including plant systematist, science leader, chief editor of the online eFlora of New Zealand, and director of herbarium CHR. Ilse’s contributions to research, science leadership, advocacy, and mentoring the next generation of taxonomists extend beyond the walls of herbarium CHR. Ilse is well-known internationally for her taxonomic research in the daisy family (Asteraceae or Compositae) and has won several awards in recognition of her botany research achievements, including the Allan Mere award in 2018, the Nancy Burbidge Medal in 2018, and the Senior Bledisloe Trophy in 2023. She was also elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 2019.
Ilse has been very involved with ASBS. In 2011, she became the first non-Australian to join the Council of the Australian Systematic Botany Society, which (not coincidentally!) that very year voted to change its name to the Australasian Systematic Botany Society. Ilse was active on the Executive of the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (CHAH) and the New Zealand National Herbarium Network (NZNHN), the International Association of Plant Taxonomy (IAPT), and many advisory boards and panels. She was also an important contributor to the 2015 Royal Society Te Apārangi report on taxonomic collections and databases and Discovering Biodiversity: A decadal plan for taxonomy and biosystematics in Australia and New Zealand 2018–2027.
Role model, colleague and friend
Many ASBS members will know Ilse and have worked with her over the years. She is a wonderful role model, colleague and friend to many, having successfully combined research and leadership into her plant systematics career, which has benefitted science and scientists in New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific, and beyond. You can read more about Ilse, her career and her recent retirement in the ASBS Newsletter 202.
