Emma Lucy Braun (1889–1971) was a renowned botanist and ecologist. Her best-known publication, the classic Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1950), is still the only work of its scope on the topic and is perhaps even more important today as the most thorough record of many forest areas that have been destroyed since she studied them. She also wrote The Woody Plants of Ohio (Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1961) and The Monocotyledoneae (Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1967).

Braun received her education at the University of Cincinnati, earning her Ph.D. in botany in 1914. A few years earlier her sister, Annette Braun (1884–1978), had been the first woman to receive a Ph.D. at the university. Lucy continued her career there, working her way up to professor of plant ecology in 1946 before retiring in 1948 to allow more time for her research.

Braun was a pioneer in the fields of plant ecology and conservation. Her Deciduous Forests was the result of 25 years of fieldwork and 65,000 miles of travel. She was the first female president of the Ecological Society of America (1950) and was listed by the Botanical Society of America as one of 50 outstanding botanists of the United States (1956).