Gabriela Hässel de Menéndez
Gabriela Hässel de Menéndez | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gabriela Gustava Hässel 15 October 1927 Quilmes, Argentina |
| Died | 4 July 2009 (aged 81) |
| Occupation | Botanist |
| Spouse | Carlos Alberto Menéndez |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards |
|
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Bryology |
| Sub-discipline | Hepaticology |
| Institutions | |
Gabriela Gustava Hässel de Menéndez (15 October 1927 – 4 July 2009) was an Argentine bryologist who worked in liverworts and hornworts. Originally a botany professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires, she left to become a National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) researcher and was head of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Argentine Museum's cryptogamy division from 1962 until 2000. She was a 1962 Guggenheim Fellow and received a 1983 Konex Award.
Biography
Hässel was born on 15 October 1927 in Quilmes, a city south of Buenos Aires.[1] Originally studying natural sciences at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, she decided to switch to biology after one of the professors there, Alberto Castellanos, suggested the idea.[2] She obtained her licentiate in 1952 and doctorate in natural sciences in 1959.[1] She was also a 1953-1954 German Academic Exchange Service postgraduate student at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Institute of Botany.[1][2]
In 1948[2] or 1949,[1] Hässel started as an unpaid assistant at the botany department of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Argentine Museum, working in a herbarium without any reference works or movable types.[2] After receiving an official appointment at the museum in 1956, she served as head of the museum's cryptogamy division from 1962 until 2000.[2] As division head, she presided over a spike in recorded specimens and restructured the cryptogamic herbarium.[2] In 2002, she was made an honorary curator at the museum.[2]
After working as a laboratory head at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires from 1955 to 1957, Hässel de Menéndez became a professor of botany there in 1961.[1] In 1962, she resigned her professor position to become a National Scientific and Technical Research Council researcher, serving until her death as well as within the Biological Sciences Advisory Committee.[2] She was a 1974 Royal Society University Research Fellow, researching the British Antarctic Survey's South Georgia collections.[2] She received a 2008 CONICET Gold Medal in honour of her becoming the first person to get a CONICET scholarship.[2]
Hässel de Menéndez's work in bryology included liverworts and hornworts.[2] She had dozens of solo publications, as well as specimens collected from dozens of research trips.[2] In 1962,[3] she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study liverwort taxonomy.[1] She won the 1970 Cristobal Hicken Award,[2] and in 1983, she received a Konex Award in Botany and Paleobotany.[4] She was a board member of the Latin American Bryological Society from 1986 to 1988, in addition to being instrumental in promoting its creation.[2] In a 1988 article in the Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory , Robbert Gradstein and Riclef Grolle named the liverwort genus Haesselia in honour of Hässel de Menéndez, calling her "the [founder of] high standard hepaticology in Latin America".[5] As part of her final publication, a Nova Hedwigia article titled "Catalogue of Marchantiophyta and Anthocerotophyta of Southern South America", she did indexing work for a bryology bibliography going back five decades.[2]
Hässel de Menéndez died on 4 July 2009.[4] She had two children with her husband Carlos Alberto Menéndez.[6]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Reports of the Secretary and Treasurer. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 1961. p. 165. Archived from the original on 16 September 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rubies, Marta F. (2009). "Gabriela Gustava Hässel de Menéndez: 1927 - 2009". Boletín de la Sociedad Argentina de Botánica (in Spanish). 44 (3–4): 453–453. ISSN 1851-2372 – via SciELO.
- ^ "Gabriela Hässel de Menéndez". Guggenheim Fellowships. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ a b "Gabriela Hässel de Menéndez". Fundación Konex (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 16 May 2025. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ Burkhardt, Lotte (2022). Eine Enzyklopädie zu eponymischen Pflanzennamen [Encyclopedia of eponymic plant names] (pdf) (in German). Berlin: Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin. p. H-4. doi:10.3372/epolist2022. ISBN 978-3-946292-41-8. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
- ^ Reiner-Drehwald, M. Elena; Rubies, Marta; Schiavone, M. Magdalena (1 November 2010). "A tribute to Gabriela Hassel de Menendez (1927-2009)". Nova Hedwigia. 91 (3–4): 279–288. doi:10.1127/0029-5035/2010/0091-0279. ISSN 0029-5035. Archived from the original on 21 December 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
- ^ International Plant Names Index. Hässel.