Dr. Martha Christensen (born 4 January 1932, Ames, died 19 March 2017, Madison) was an American mycologist, botanist and educator known as an expert in fungal taxonomy and ecology, particularly for soil-dwelling fungi in the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium.
She was hired as the first female faculty member in the Department of Botany at the University of Wyoming in 1963.
[2] She served as president of the Mycological Society of America from 1987 to 1988, and received the organization's William A. Weston Award in teaching excellence in 1991.
[1] As a conservationist she served as a board member and volunteer for the Wyoming Outdoor Council[3] Christensen's research covered a wide variety of mycological topics, and she was supported in that work by over 60 grants.
[1] Over the course of her career she gathered free-dried a large fungal spore collection that was eventually donated to the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute.