United States agrostologist. Thomas Soderstrom was Curator of Grasses at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, for more than twenty years. Born in Chicago, he graduated from the University of Illinois in 1957 and entered the graduate school at Yale University, where he earned his MS the following year and his PhD in 1961 with a thesis on the genus Muhlenbergia. He joined the National Museum in 1960 as an assistant curator, working under Agnes Chase, Jason Swallen, and Floyd McClure, and quickly advanced to associate curator and then curator. An authority on the taxonomy and biology of bamboos, he published nearly 40 works on the subject and lectured around the world, notably as the keynote speaker for the International Bamboo Conference in Puerto Rico in 1985. His field studies and collecting trips took him to various parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He was a founding member and past executive director (1967-1969) of the Association of Tropical Biology, a fellow of the Linnean Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary associate of the Botanical Society of Brazil. In spite of his failing health, he organised the First International Grass Symposium, which was held at the Smithsonian in July 1986.

Sources:
D.H. Nicolson, 1987, "Thomas Robert Soderstrom (1936-1987)", Taxon, 36(4): 803.