Baums awarded 2020 Faculty Scholar Medal

Iliana Baums, professor of biology, has been selected as one of five recipients of the 2020 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of peers reviews nominations and selects candidates.

Baums is a leader in the broad field of coral reef research, a field that has become critically important to the future health of the world’s oceans, nominators said, adding that she led the field in developing tools for rapid genetic identification in corals. Her work has bridged the gap between basic population genomics and more applied aspects of coral restoration for coral reefs in decline due to climate change.

By developing tools for rapid genetic identification in corals, Baums’ work enables basic and applied research. She is the leading scholar in the Caribbean on coral genetic rescue and adaptation of corals to climate change. Her research on population genomics and conservation guides researchers in many fields outside of coral reef ecology, colleagues said.

“Research like hers is extremely important because corals are the foundation species of one of the most diverse communities on earth, because coral reefs provide sustenance, economic and physical stability to many countries, and because healthy coral reefs are necessary for a healthy ocean and planet,” a nominator said.

Baums’ research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of cold-water corals and the population dynamics of symbiotic tropical corals. She relies on an extensive network of collaborations both at Penn State and with several national and international organizations devoted to the conservation of coral reefs.

Colleagues said her results and ongoing work have profound implications for aiding endangered coral populations and species, adding that Baums’ numerous and diverse funding sources highlight both the severity of the problems coral reefs face and her ability to produce research results that pinpoint solutions.

Baums was awarded a fellowship from Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, the Institute for Advanced Study, in Delmenhorst, Germany in 2017 and 2018 and the Humboldt Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2014. She was named one of Molecular Ecology’s Best Reviewers by the scientific journal in 2014. In 2012, Baums was part of a team honored with the Excellence in Partnership award from the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.

Baums has co-authored over 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has served as associate editor of the journals Frontiers in Microbiology, Frontiers in Marine Science, and Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B and on the editorial board of Coral Reefs. Baums chairs the Restoration Genetics Working group of the Coral Restoration Consortium, which develops guidelines for coral restoration based on evolutionary principles and has provided advice to NOAA, IUCN, and the State of Florida. She also is a member of the scientific advisory board of SECORE, the Sexual Coral Reproduction Foundation, a conservation initiative based in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Prior to joining Penn State in August 2006, Baums was an assistant researcher at the University of Hawaii from 2005 to 2006 and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Miami from 2004 to 2005. She earned a doctoral degree at the University of Miami in 2003, a Diplom degree in marine biology at the University of Bremen in Germany in 2000, and Vordiplom degree in biology from the University of Tüebingen in Germany in 1996.