The Sohmer Family

Drs. Sara and Sy Sohmer are shown here with their daughters, Rebecca (seated) and Rachel, their son-in-law Mauricio Renzi and Rebecca and Mauricio’s son Jacob.  Sy is the President and CEO of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), a major botanical resource that resides in the only LEED Platinum building currently in Tarrant County.   He has a B.S. in Biology from the City College of New York, M.S. from the University of Tennessee (where he met Sara), and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii.  He taught at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse, was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, served as a Forest Officer for the Government of Papua New Guinea, and during his time as Assistant Director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu spent many months in the rainforests of the Philippines, Indonesia, and French Polynesia.  He was recruited to be Director of BRIT from the Agency for International Development where he was Senior Biodiversity Advisor. 

Sara is a native of East Tennessee.  She earned her B.A. in History from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, an M.A. in British History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D.in Intellectual History from the University of Hawaii.  She taught British and European history at TCU. 

Both Rebecca and Rachel grew up in Hawaii while Sy was with the Bishop Museum.  Rebecca works for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. after several years with the Brookings Institution.  She has a B.S. from Macalester College and an M.S. in geography from Syracuse University.  Rachel earned a B.S. in conservation biology at the University of Texas, M.S. in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently studying landscape architecture at Cornell University.