Eleanor Jane Milner-Gulland (born 3 June 1967) is the Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity and head of the Department of Zoology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science. She is particularly known for her work on

Saiga Antelope The saiga antelope (, ''Saiga tatarica''), or saiga, is a critically endangered antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in ...

Early life and education

Milner-Gulland was born on 3 June 1967 in

Cuckfield Cuckfield ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Mid Sussex District, Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, on the southern slopes of the Weald. It lies south of London, north of Brighton, and east northeas ...

. She is the elder daughter of the renowned Russian scholar

Robin Milner-Gulland Robert Rainsford "Robin" Milner-Gulland, FBA, FSA, (born Mill Hill, 24 February 1936) is a British scholar of Russian and Byzantine literature, culture, and art. His main areas of expertise are Russian modern & medieval cultural history, modern ...

and the artist Alison Milner-Gulland. She completed her undergraduate education at

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

in Pure and Applied Biology. She then went to

Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

to complete a PhD in conservation biology supervised by

John Beddington Sir John Rex Beddington HonFREng (born 13 October 1945) is a British population biologist and Senior Adviser at the Oxford Martin School, and was previously Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College London, and the UK Govern ...

. Her thesis was entitled ''The exploitation of certain large mammals for trade : the implications for management'' which she submitted in 1991.

Career

After completing her PhD, Milner-Gulland became a junior research fellow at New College, Oxford. In 1994, she became a lecturer in mathematical ecology at the University of Warwick. In 1998, she moved back to Imperial College, where she stayed until 2015. In 2007, she was appointed Professor of Conservation Science. In 2015 she became the Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford and a fellow of

Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ch ...

. In 2019 she became an official fellow of Parks College (later renamed Reuben College) where she was Theme Lead for Environmental Change. However, she moved back to Merton College in 2021. Milner-Gulland is a conservation scientist whose work is at the interface of social and biological systems. She is the founder and chair of the Saiga Conservation Alliance and has launched a number of initiatives which aim to change the real-world conversation around conservation, including the Conservation Hierarchy approach to meeting a global vision of restoring nature and the Conservation Optimism movement. She is the Chair of the UK Government's Darwin Expert Committee and a Trustee of the UK WWF. In 2015, Milner-Gulland became a Pew Fellow of Marine Conservation. She is also a trustee of the

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a conservation organization with a mission to save species from extinction. Gerald Durrell founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust as a charitable institution in 1963 with the dodo as its symbol. The ...

Honours and awards

Marsh Award for Conservation Biology The Marsh Award for Conservation Biology, established 1991, is an award run in partnership between the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Marsh Charitable Trust that recognises an individual for his or her "contributions of fundamental sci ...

(2001) *

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

(2008) * Marsh Ecology Award (2011) * Society for Conservation Biology Distinguished Service Award (2019)

References

External links

Professor EJ Milner Gulland homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milner-Gulland, EJ 1967 births Living people People from Cuckfield Alumni of New College, Oxford Alumni of Imperial College London English zoologists Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Fellows of Reuben College, Oxford Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders