Irene Baker (née Williams, 1918 – November 6, 1989) was an American botanist who collaborated with her husband

Herbert G. Baker Herbert George Baker (February 23, 1920 – July 2, 2001) was a British-American botanist and evolutionary ecologist who was an authority on pollination biology and breeding systems of angiosperms. He described what became known as "Baker's rule ...

to research

pollination biology Anthecology, or pollination biology, is the study of pollination as well as the relationships between flowers and their pollinators. Floral biology is a bigger field that includes these studies. Most flowering plants, or angiosperms, are pollinat ...

, the composition of

nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists ...

and study its ecological, evolutionary and taxonomic qualities.

Early life and education

Baker was born in the United Kingdom in 1918. She completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the

University of Wales The University of Wales (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Prifysgol Cymru'') is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff � ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

where she studied zoology and mathematics. She then taught at both high school and technical college levels.

Teaching and research

In 1945, she married

, a botanist and university professor. In 1954 Herbert joined the faculty of the

University College of Ghana The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the B ...

and Baker accompanied him to

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. While in Ghana, Baker researched the

tsetse fly Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies), are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Glo ...

. In 1957 Herbert accepted a position with the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and again Baker accompanied her husband. She went on to obtain a position teaching microbiology at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

, where she worked for the next 11 years. In 1968 Baker obtained a position at the University of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, Berkeley and began working alongside her husband in the Baker Lab. From 1973, Baker and her husband published numerous papers on nectar and its scientific significance, including, in 1983, a major review of sugars in nectar. Baker undertook much of the analysis that informed their research. She invented novel ambrosiological techniques necessary to obtain the required data. Baker went on to publish methodological papers on some of these techniques and contributed to compendia of practical pollination biology. In undertaking this work, Baker helped open up new areas of research into pollination biology.

Selected publications

* * * *

Death

Baker died on November 6, 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Irene 1918 births 1989 deaths American women botanists 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists Alumni of the University of Wales Mills College faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty