Martin Wojciechowski

Martin Wojciechowski is a plant evolutionary biologist working specifically on their genetic relationships, biogeographic and ecological distributions, chromosome evolution and genome structure, rates of diversification, as inferred from the application of molecular data and phylogenetic methods.  His major focus has been the systematics and evolutionary history of the legumes (Fabaceae), a large and diverse family of flowering plants which includes peas, beans, alfalfa, clovers, locoweeds, acacias, mesquites, and paloverdes — many species of which are agriculturally and/or ecologically important worldwide.  He is a founding member of the Legume Phylogeny Working Group, an international team of legume scientists, and he serves as the legume family editor for The Jepson Manual Project (flora of vascular plants of California, UC Berkeley Press) and the Jepson E-Flora.  He is an editor of the recently published Legumes of Arizona, An Illustrated Flora and Reference, BRIT Press (2024).  His interests have expanded into the genomics of cacti with an emphasis on the columnar species of North America such as the saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), biodiversity informatics and the floristics of western North America.

Trained as a botanist and microbiologist, Wojciechowski has worked on topics as diverse as DNA structure and enzymology, P transposable element evolution in Drosophila, cyanobacterial ecology and evolution, and the regulation of DNA recombination and repair systems in bacteria.  Before coming to ASU, he was a Museum Research Scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, a visiting Scholar at University of California, Davis, a Research Associate and NSF-sponsored Research Training Group coordinator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He served as the Associate Dean for Facilities in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU from 2014 to 2023.  He is currently affiliated with the Department of Plant Science and Plant Pathology at Montana State University in Bozeman.