Government Pavilion, C/ Padre Herrera s/n
Post Office Box 456
38200, San Cristobal de La Laguna
Santa Cruz de Tenerife - Spain
Switchboard Tel.: (+34) 922 31 90 00
Hours: Mon, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Honoris Causa » Ana María Crespo de las Casas
Ana María Crespo de las Casas (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, March 30, 1948) is a Spanish biologist with a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), an institution where she was a professor in 1983 and emeritus since 2018. She is currently the president of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain, the first woman to hold this position since the founding of that organization in 1847.
Crespo has worked on the relationship between phenotypic and genomic traits, highlighting the high level of morphological homoplasy in fungi and revealing the common presence of a large number of cryptic species in lichens. He has also contributed to the current evolutionary systematics of fungi, particularly through his contribution to defining the modern concept of genus. He has also worked on the molecular identification of species (animals, plants, and fungi) and collaborated on the design of DNA barcoding.
She was President of the Spanish Antarctic Programme Commission from 1988 to 1994; Director General of the Office of the Secretary of State for Universities and Research from 1987 to 1991; Director General of Universities from 1991 to 1993; and General Coordinator of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI) from 2005 to 2008. Among other honours and distinctions, she has received the Charter 100 Award (2024); a medal from the International Association for Lichenology (2012); the Individual Medal of Honour from the Menéndez y Pelayo International University (1993); and was honoured by her peers with the dedication of seven species, one subgenus and one genera, most of them lichens.
Her godmother at the ceremony will be the emeritus professor and former rector Marisa Tejedor Salguero.
