Reid Venable Moran (June 30, 1916 – January 21, 2010) was an American botanist and the curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum from 1957 to 1982.

[1][5] Moran served in World War II as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946, his enlistment interrupting his studies at Cornell.

On the 23rd of February, Moran's aircraft was shot down over Steyr,[6] Austria on its first mission, but the crew had managed to complete their bombing run and bailed out over German-controlled Yugoslavia.

Moran was rescued by Yugoslav partisans and managed to return to friendly territory in Italy after 6 weeks with the rest of his crew, collecting plants on the way.

[1][5][7][8] On his way back to the United States, Moran passed through Algeria and Morocco, visiting the French botanist René Maire, at the time the authority on Algerian and Moroccan plants.

[1][7][8][9] After service in World War II, Moran worked at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden for a year and a half, but left when he was expected to become its next director, as he found the position too restrictive.

After his time in Asia, Moran was hired by his longtime collaborator George Edmund Lindsay, who by then was the director of the San Diego Natural History Museum, as the curator of botany.

[12] Moran conducted a botanical survey of the Channel Islands for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and performed taxonomic work for the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden[13] and the Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University[8][7] before joining the San Diego Museum of Natural History as curator of botany, succeeding Ethel Bailey Higgins in 1957.