For the first time since 1995, the UC Botanical Garden has a permanent director: Ellen Simms, associate professor of integrative biology.

Simms arrived in January from the University of Chicago, where she was associate professor of ecology and evolution. Her field is plant population biology, which investigates how plant populations survive, how new populations are established, how they respond to environmental change, why they become invasive, and why they become extinct. Her specialty is how plants deal with their consumers -- from the tiniest insect to a munching cow.

Obviously energized by her new post, Simms has big plans for the Botanical Garden, which she calls "one of the three or four best in the country. This is an amazing, world class collection on a beautiful site," she says. "The diversity of the collection is phenomenal. Most of the specimens were collected in the wild, which makes this garden a living museum. The maturity of the plantings also makes it very special."

Simms is spearheading a new master plan for the garden which will focus on a greater commitment to research, teaching (both Berkeley and K-12 students), and community outreach.

Several building projects are already in the planning stages: a new, state-of-the-art research greenhouse and garden; renovation of the Strawberry Canyon Chemical Facility into a center for research and training in plant population biology; replacement of the garden's largest display greenhouse; and remodeling the library, which will be open to visitors.

With its more than 21,000 specimens representing 13,000 species from around the world, the UC Botanical Garden is an important resource for researchers worldwide. Because future researchers may need to reexamine the subjects of earlier research, the garden is embarking on the huge task of preserving samples of all its specimens at the University and Jepson Herbaria.

A new plant program will introduce unique and interesting plants from the garden, both naturally evolved and developed, to the horticultural community.

Campus classes have always used the garden as a laboratory, including those in art, anthropology, photography, and paleontology.

About 60,000 people visit the garden each year, many on docent-led tours. Some 200 volunteers give about 20,000 hours to the garden each year.

Simms grew up in the San Fernando Valley, where she learned a love of gardens from her mother and a love of science from her father. "An outreach program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History was also a big influence," she recalls.

Simms chose UC Santa Barbara for her BA and MA degrees because it offered the most field biology courses. She took every single one. In 1983 she received her PhD in plant ecology from Duke University.

This fall she will teach genetics and evolutionary biology.

-- Julia Sommer