Knapp specialises in various taxa within the genus Solanum, including the Geminata clade, the Dulcamaroid clade, the Thelopodium clade, the Pteroidea group and the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and relatives. She is also an expert in other taxa within the nightshade family (Solanaceae), including the genus Nicotiana and the tribes Anthocercidae and Juanulloeae.[2]
Since 1992, Knapp has been active as a scientific researcher in the botany department of the Natural History Museum in London.[3] She is involved in field work and research in the herbarium. She also contributes to taxonomic research of the Geminta and Dulcamaroid clades, in particular in the context of the Planetary Biodiversity Inventory project Solanum, a worldwide research project to map nightshades. She participates in a collaborative project to clarify the genomic evolution of Nicotiana. She is also active in involving the private sector in the implementation of the biodiversity treaty in Gran Chaco. She is an editor of the Flora Mesoamericana publication series, a project aimed at mapping as many plants as possible found in Mesoamerica .
She has authored several books on botany or botanical exploration and has written over 200 peer reviewed scientific articles.[3] The French-language edition of her book Potted Histories, entitled Le Voyage Botanique, was awarded the Prix Pierre-Joseph Redouté in 2004, a prize that was established in 2000 in honour of the best French-language plant book in a given year.
She has also published numerous botanical names, in particular taxa within the Nightshade family. Knapp has published three botanical names of passion flowers together with lepidopterist James Mallet. One of them, Passiflora macdougaliana, they named after Passiflora specialist John MacDougal. MacDougal himself named Passiflora sandrae after Knapp.
Committees, panels and societies
She is a member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Innovator of the Year panel, a member of the Shenzhen Declaration for Plant Sciences Committee, and a member of the National Geographic Grants Committee.[2] She did important work in 2011 (at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne and in 2017 at the XIX International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen by chairing the committees on botanical nomenclature.[4][5] The changes made had the effect modernizing the nomenclatural rules for fungi, algae, and plants to allow electronic publication of names, and to create a registry of plant names to make it easier to retrieve botanical names. In May 2017 Knapp became the president-elect of the Linnean Society of London, and in May 2018 succeeded Prof. Paul Brakefield as president.[6] She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7]
^Christina Flann, Nicholas Turland, Anna M. Monro. 2014. Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011. XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne: Nomenclature Section, July 18–22, 2011. Phytokeys 41:1–289. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.41.8398
^Nicolson, N., Challis, K., Tucker, A., & Knapp, S. 2017. Impact of e-publication changes in the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (Melbourne Code, 2012) – did we need to “run for our lives”? BMC Evolutionary Biology 17:116. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-0961-8
^The Linnean, Vol. 33, No. 2, Oct. 2017, p. 44, Published by The Linnean Society of London
^ ab"Sandra Knapp". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved November 23, 2019.