Dianne Edwards
Professor Dianne EdwardsCBE,FRS,FRSE,FLS,FLSW(born 1942[1]) is apalaeobotanist,who studies the colonisation of land by plants, and early land plant interactions.
Early life
[edit]Edwards was born in Swansea, South Wales, and spent much of her time at her parents' bungalow on theGower Peninsula.[2]
Career
[edit]Edwards' work has centred on early plant fossils, the majority of which have been retrieved from the UK.[3]Her interest in early plants was initiated after she studied plant fossils preserved in three dimensions in the mineralpyrite(fools' gold).[3]
Much of her later work has centred on theRhynie chertand charcoalified fossils, large and microscopic, from the Welsh borderlands andSouth Wales.
Edwards is a DistinguishedResearch Professor,and former Head of School within the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, atCardiff University.[4][5]
She is also a Fellow of theRoyal Society,Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh,anhonorary Fellowat theUniversity of Wales, Swansea,a Corresponding Member of theBotanical Society of America,and has links withChina,consulting for theBeijing Museum of Natural History,and working on fossils from that country.[6]
Discoveries
[edit]
Among Edwards's most notable works, are the discovery of vascular tissue inCooksonia,[7]the description and analysis ofstomatain early land plants,[8]and very early liverwort-like plants.[9]The charcoalified nature of many of her fossils have enabled her to prove that wildfires took place in the Siluruan period.[10] She has also worked on several enigmatic fossils such asNematothallus,[11]Tortilicaulis[12]andPrototaxites.[13]
She is the author or co-author of a considerable number of botanical names of fossil plants, such asDanziellaD.Edwards (2006)[14]andDemersathecaC.-S. Li & D.Edwards (1996).[15]
Distinctions
[edit]- Elected aFellow of the Royal Societyin 1996.[3]
- President of thePalaeontological Association,1996-1998.[17]
- Awarded theCBEfor Services toBotanyin 1999.[18]
- Trustee of theNatural History Museum,London.[6]
- 2004 winner of theLyell Medal.[19]
- Founding Fellow of theLearned Society of Wales[20]and in July 2010 was appointed as its inaugural Vice-President for Science, Technology and Medicine.
- President of theLinnean Society of London,2012–2015.
- PhDhonoris causaat the Faculty of Science and Technology atUppsala University,Sweden, since 2014.[21]
References
[edit]- ^Entry: D. Edwards. Index of Botanists,Harvard University Herbarium,retrieved16 December2017
- ^Walton, Adam (27 March 2012)."Prof. Dianne Edwards".BBC – Wales – Radio Wales – Science Cafe.Retrieved29 October2015.
- ^abcProfessor Dianne Edwards FRS – The first plants
- ^"Professor Dianne Edwards - People - Cardiff University".Cardiff University.Retrieved11 September2018.
- ^"Professor Dianne Edwards CBE PhD, ScD(Cantab) FRSE, FLS, FLSE, FLSW, FRS".WISRNet, Women in Science Research Network.2015.
- ^abProfessor Dianne Edwards
- ^Edwards, D.; Davies, K. L.; Axe, L. (1992). "A vascular conducting strand in the early land plantCooksonia".Nature.357(6380): 683–685.Bibcode:1992Natur.357..683E.doi:10.1038/357683a0.S2CID4264332.
- ^Edwards, D.; Kerp, H.; Hass, H. (1998). "Stomata in early land plants: an anatomical and ecophysiological approach".Journal of Experimental Botany.49(Special Issue): 255–278.doi:10.1093/jexbot/49.suppl_1.255.
- ^Edwards, D.; Duckett, J. G.; Richardson, J. B. (1995). "Hepatic characters in the earliest land plants".Nature.374(6523): 635–636.Bibcode:1995Natur.374..635E.doi:10.1038/374635a0.S2CID4361385.
- ^Glasspool, I. J.; Edwards, D.; Axe, L. (2004). "Charcoal in the Silurian as evidence for the earliest wildfire".Geology.32(5): 381–383.Bibcode:2004Geo....32..381G.doi:10.1130/G20363.1.
- ^Edwards, D.; Rose, V. (1984)."Cuticles of Nematothallus: a further enigma".Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.88(1–2): 35–54.doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1984.tb01563.x.
- ^Edwards, D. (1979). "A late Silurian flora from the Lower Old Red Sandstone of south-west Dyfed".Palaeontology.22:23–52.
- ^Burgess, N. D.; Edwards, D. (1988). "A new Palaeozoic plant closely allied toPrototaxitesDawson ".Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.97(2): 189–203.doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1988.tb02461.x.
- ^Edwards, Dianne (2006), "Danziella artesiana,a new name forZosterophyllum artesianumfrom the Lower Devonian of Artois, northern France ",Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology,142(3–4): 93–101,doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2006.04.008
- ^Li, C.-S. & Edwards, D. (1996), "DemersathecaLi et Edwards, gen. nov., a new genus of early land plants from the Lower Devonian, Yunnan Province, China ",Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology,93(1–4): 77–88,doi:10.1016/0034-6667(95)00120-4
- ^International Plant Names Index.D.Edwards.
- ^PalAss at 60(PDF).The Palaeontological Association. 2017. p. 34.
- ^"No. 55513".The London Gazette (Supplement).12 June 1999. p. 8.
- ^"Lyell Medal winners".The Geological Society.
- ^"Founding Fellows".Learned Society of Wales.Learned Society of Wales.Retrieved15 July2015.
- ^"Hans Rosling one of four new honorary doctors at Faculty of Science and Technology – Uppsala University, Sweden".uu.se.Retrieved3 February2016.
External links
[edit]
- Female Fellows of the Royal Society
- Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales
- Academics of Cardiff University
- British palaeontologists
- Paleobotanists
- Living people
- Lyell Medal winners
- 1942 births
- British women paleontologists
- 20th-century British women scientists
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Fellows of the Linnean Society of London
- Presidents of the Linnean Society of London
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh