Sarah Catherine Darwin FLS (born 1 April 1964 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) is a British

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

. She is the daughter of George Erasmus Darwin, a metallurgist, and his wife Shuna (née Service). She has two older brothers; Robert George Darwin (born 1959) and the conservationist Chris Darwin (born 1961). She is descended from

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

via Charles's son

George Howard Darwin Sir George Howard Darwin, (9 July 1845 – 7 December 1912) was an English barrister and astronomer, the second son and fifth child of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin. Biography George H. Darwin was born at Down House, Kent, the fifth chil ...

(1845–1912), an astronomer, his son William Robert Darwin (1894–1970), a stockbroker and brother of the physicist Charles Galton Darwin, and his wife Sarah Monica (née Slingsby) were the parents of George Erasmus Darwin (1927-). Darwin first visited the Galapagos Islands in 1995 with her parents and brother Chris on holiday. She stayed behind to prepare botanical illustrations for a field guide to the Islands. She is an ambassador for the conservation charity Galapagos Conservation Trust. She gained a BSc in Botany from

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in 1999 and a PhD from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 2009. Her PhD thesis was entitled ''The systematics and genetics of tomatoes on the Galápagos Islands''. Her supervisors were

Sandra Knapp Sandra Diane Knapp (born 1956) is an American-born botanist. She is a merit researcher of the Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London and from 2018 was the president of the Linnean Society of London. While working at the Natural ...

James Mallet James Mallet (born 15 March 1955 in London) is an evolutionary zoologist specialising in entomology. He was educated at Winchester College. He became professor of biological diversity at the Department of Biology, University College London. He w ...

and

Ziheng Yang Ziheng Yang FRS (; born 1 November 1964) is a Chinese biologist. He holds the R.A. Fisher Chair of Statistical Genetics at University College London,‘YANG, Prof. Ziheng’, Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edn, Oxford University Pre ...

. She has been married to German botanist Johannes Vogel, former Keeper of Botany at the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

and now Director General of the

Museum für Naturkunde The Natural History Museum (german: Museum für Naturkunde) is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major muse ...

in Berlin, since 2003, with whom she has two sons, Leo Erasmus Darwin Vogel (born 2003) and Josiah Algy Darwin Vogel (born 2005). In 2005 the family, along with other descendants of Charles Darwin, including George Erasmus Darwin, and Chris Darwin were involved in counting the flowers at

Down House Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving to Down ...

. She wrote a foreword for the 2009 book ''Galapagos: Preserving Darwin's Legacy'' by Tui de Roy. In 2009, Darwin was reported in various media outlets as having "won" a "

talking to plants Plant perception or biocommunication is the paranormal idea that plants are sentient, that they respond to humans in a manner that amounts to ESP, and that they experience a range of emotions or parapsychological states. Since plants lack nervou ...

competition" against ten others. In the experiment, tomato plants grew the most when subjected to Darwin reading extracts from ''

The Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

''. She appeared in the 2009–10

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

VPRO The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for , ) is a Dutch public broadcaster, which forms a part of the Dutch public broadcasting system. Founded in 1926 as a liberal Protestant broadcasting organization, it gradually became more soc ...

television series '' Beagle: In Darwin's wake'' in which she, with her husband and children, along with others such as

Redmond O'Hanlon Redmond O'Hanlon, FRGS, FRSL (born 5 June 1947) is an English writer and scholar. Life O'Hanlon was born in 1947 in Dorset, England. He was educated at Marlborough College and then Oxford University. After taking his M.Phil. in nineteenth-ce ...

, participated in a recreation of Charles Darwin's voyage on HMS ''Beagle'' on board of the sailing ship

Stad Amsterdam The ''Stad Amsterdam'' (''City of Amsterdam'') is a three-masted clipper that was built in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2000 at the Damen Shipyard. The ship was designed by Gerard Dijkstra who modelled her after the mid-19th century frigate ''A ...

. She attended the Science & Technology Summit at the

World Forum Convention Center The World Forum (originally known as Nederlands Congresgebouw and formerly Nederlands Congres Centrum and World Forum Convention Center) is a concert venue and convention centre in The Hague, Netherlands, near the buildings of the International ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

on 18 November 2010, at which O'Hanlon was also a featured guest.

References

External links

Sarah Darwin's Beagle diary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwin, Sarah Catherine Charles Darwin Living people 1964 births British botanists Alumni of the University of Reading Alumni of University College London Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Women botanists 20th-century British women scientists 21st-century British women scientists

See also

References

External links