Education: Ph.D. 1993 Evolutionary and Population Biology, Washington University at St. Louis. M. S. 1984 Botany, Colorado State University. B.S. 1980 Range and Forest Management, Colorado State University.

My research is in Plant Systematics. Currently I have two large research projects. I am studying members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae) especially the large genus Physaria, which Ive recently merged with Lesquerella. This research involves field, herbarium, and laboratory research. Field work to-date has already uncovered several new species. Herbarium studies have led to a revision of the South American species of Physaria. In the laboratory I and my students sequence DNA as a tool for reconstructing evolutionary history and species boundaries.

My second major research focus is the floristics of the American West. My collaborators and I recently completed a flora of the Four Corners area in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. This project has had a massive field component as well as an herbarium component. I am now working on a flora of the state of New Mexico with my long-time collaborator Ken Heil of San Juan College.

Students in my lab have worked on the population genetics of Asclepias, species boundaries and population genetics of Plantanthera, and the evolution and biogeography of Physaria reediana.

OKane, S.L., Jr. and I.A. Al-Shehbaz. 2003. Phylogenetic Position and Generic Limits of Arabidopsis (Brassicaceae) Based on Sequences of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 90:603-612. Heil, K.D. and S.L. OKane, Jr. 2003. Catalog of the Four Corners Flora, vascular plants of the San Juan River drainage, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Harvard Papers in Botany 7:321-379. Al-Shehbaz, I.A. and S.L. OKane, Jr. 2002. Lesquerella is united with Physaria (Brassicaceae). Novon 12:319-329. OKane, S.L., Jr. and I.A. Al-Shehbaz. 2002. Paysonia, a new genus segregated from Lesquerella (Brassicaceae). Novon 12:379-381. Al-Shehbaz, I.A. and S.L. OKane, Jr. 2002. Taxonomy and phylogeny of Arabidopsis (Brassicaceae). In C.R. Somerville and E.M Meyerowitz (eds.), The Arabidopsis Book, doi/10.119/tab.001,