Resolution of Respect

Rebecca Reyburn Sharitz passed away on 20 October 2018 at her home in Aiken, South Carolina. She is survived by her husband, Byrne Hatfield, and brother and sister‐in‐law, Wythe and Virginia Sharitz. Known to her friends, colleagues, and family as “Becky,” she was internationally recognized for her work in wetland ecology, receiving the prestigious National Wetlands Award in Science Research from the Environmental Law Institute in 2010. Becky's career was an illustrious one. She became a world‐renowned expert on southeastern U.S. floodplains and isolated wetlands. She authored or co‐authored more than 160 peer‐reviewed papers or chapters and co‐edited three books, including a textbook with Darold P. Batzer, Ecology of Freshwater and Estuarine Wetlands (2006), which supported the graduate wetland ecology course they taught jointly. Her body of research, fueled by over 40 significant grants, covered a lot of ground. Most notably, her work was the first to demonstrate important linkages between hydrologic characteristics and wetland forest regeneration following thermal releases from nuclear reactors and alteration from dams Sharitz et al. 1990. At the time of her death, she was Professor Emerita in the Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, and Senior Research Ecologist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) in Aiken, South Carolina. Becky was born on 10 August 1944 in Wytheville, Virginia, the daughter of Horace B. and Reyburn Hale Sharitz. Her youth was spent on the family dairy farm where she cultivated a lifelong love for all things biological. She obtained a B.S. degree with a major in Biology from Roanoke College in 1966, and a Ph.D. in Botany, specializing in Ecology, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1970. She was briefly Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Andrews Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, NC, during the summer of 1970, and then held an appointment as Assistant Professor of Biology at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, 1970–1971. She joined the SREL in 1972, moving up from Research Associate (1972–1977), to Associate Research Ecologist (1978–1986), to Senior Research Ecologist (1986–2018). Parallel to these appointments, she was on the faculty of the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Botany (1972–1977), Adjunct Associate Professor of Botany (1980–1989), and Professor of Plant Biology (1986–2010; Emerita, 2010–2018). From 2003 to 2018, she was also Adjunct Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources at Clemson University. At