Anna F. Edlund

Research and Teaching Interests

I am a developmental biologist with training in both animal and plant models. My current research explores the functions of diverse pollen wall structures during plant sex and pollinator feeding, along with potential uses for pollen cell walls in Materials Science. I have also published on pedagogy and science engagement and have taught Biology to non-majors, the public, Art students, and Tibetan Buddhist monastics (I have worked since 2012 with the Emory Tibet Science Initiative).

Courses I regularly teach include: Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, Biological Pattern Formation, Biology of Women, Plant Biology, and Introductory (Cell and Molecular) Biology. I have worked with 40+ undergraduates in my research laboratory, and I am especially glad about those articles co-authored with undergraduate students.

Biosketch

I received my B.A., with Distinction in Biology at Swarthmore College. My graduate research focused on neural cell motility in Xenopus laevis frog embryos and was with Dr. Ray Keller at U.C. Berkeley. My postdoctoral work focused on pollen cell motility after pollination in Arabidopsis thaliana flowers and was with Dr. Daphne Preuss at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the U of Chicago. Before coming to SAIC, I held faculty positions at Spelman College (GA), Lafayette College (PA), and Bethany College (WV), where I was promoted to Professor in 2024 and served as Biology Department Chair from 2019-2025.

Honors & Awards

2025, 2021 U.S. Patent Numbers 12, 385,016 and 10,913,937 for Sporopollenin Degradation

2024 John R. Taylor Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research in the Liberal Arts, Bethany College, WV

2018 Scientist-in-Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL

2012 Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Natural History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

2009 Grand Prize in the NSF Chlorofilms Video Contest, for the educational video Fertile Eyes, in collaboration with Lelavision

2008 Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, Spelman College, GA

1996 Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA