Dr. Karen Hughes

Karen Hughes is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She served as Head of the Botany Department from 1985-1991 (now part of EEB). She received her MS and Ph.D. at the University of Utah in Genetics with a minor in statistics. Since the mid-1980’s she was predominantly involved in research involving basidiomycete fungi which focused on fungal distributions and speciation processes. More recently, she has been involved in research on post-fire fungi including those fruiting after fire and post-fire mycorrhizal and endophytic fungi. She served the MSA as a Council member (2002-2003), a member, then chair, of the development committee (2006-2013), and member, then chair of the Education Committee (2015-2019). She was Co-PI on several NSF and NBII grants to digitize the fungal collections at the University of Tennessee Herbarium and to carry out field work in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina which included the All Taxon Biodiversity Inventory in the Smokies in conjunction with the 2004 MSA meeting in Ashville, North Carolina. She has authored 140+ peer reviewed papers. She is an MSA and AAAS fellow.