Thomas Robert Soderstrom

Thomas Robert Soderstrom (9 January 1936 Chicago – 1 September 1987) [1] was an American agrostologist His special field of study was the grass family Gramineae or Poaceae.

He was Curator of Grasses at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC for some twenty years.

In 1957 Soderstrom graduated from the University of Illinois with a BSc in Biology, and enrolled at the graduate school at Yale University, earning a Master of Science in Biology the following year and a PhD in Botany 1961.

His field work covered parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Despite poor health he undertook the organising of the First International Grass Symposium held at the Smithsonian in July 1986.