Professor Dianne Edwards

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, FRS, FRSE, FLS, FLSW (born 1942) is a

palaeobotanist Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

, who studies the colonisation of land by plants, and early land plant interactions.

Early life

Edwards was born in Swansea, South Wales, and spent much of her time at her parents' bungalow on the

Gower Peninsula Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...

Career

Edwards' work has centred on early plant fossils, the majority of which have been retrieved from the UK. Her interest in early plants was initiated after she studied plant fossils preserved in three dimensions in the mineral

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...

(fools' gold). Much of her later work has centred on the

Rhynie chert The Rhynie chert is a Lower Devonian sedimentary deposit exhibiting extraordinary fossil detail or completeness (a Lagerstätte). It is exposed near the village of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland; a second unit, the Windyfield chert, is locate ...

and charcoalified fossils, large and microscopic, from the Welsh borderlands and South Wales. Edwards is a Distinguished

Research Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

, and former Head of School within the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, at Cardiff University. She is also a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an

honorary Fellow Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in m ...

at the

University of Wales, Swansea Swansea University ( cy, Prifysgol Abertawe) is a public university, public research university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. It was chartered as University College of Swansea in 1920, as the fourth college of the University of Wales. ...

, a Corresponding Member of the Botanical Society of America, and has links with China, consulting for the Beijing Museum of Natural History, and working on fossils from that country.Professor Dianne Edwards
/ref>

Discoveries

Among Edwards's most notable works, are the discovery of vascular tissue in ''

Cooksonia ''Cooksonia'' is an extinct group of primitive land plants, treated as a genus, although probably not monophyletic. The earliest ''Cooksonia'' date from the middle of the Silurian (the Wenlock epoch); the group continued to be an important comp ...

'', the description and analysis of stomata in early land plants, and very early liverwort-like plants. The charcoalified nature of many of her fossils have enabled her to prove that wildfires took place in the Siluruan period. She has also worked on several enigmatic fossils such as ''

Nematothallus ''Nematothallus'' is a form genus comprising cuticle-like fossils. Some of its constituents likely represent red algae, whereas others resemble lichens. History of research ''Nematothallus'' was first described by Lang in 1937, who envision ...

'', ''

Tortilicaulis ''Tortilicaulis'' is a moss-like plant known from fossils recovered from southern Britain, spanning the Silurian-Devonian boundary (around ). Originally recovered from the Downtonian of the Welsh borderlands, ''Tortilicaulis'' has since been r ...

'' and ''

Prototaxites ''Prototaxites'' is a genus of terrestrial fossil fungi dating from the Middle Ordovician until the Late Devonian periods, approximately . ''Prototaxites'' formed small to large trunk-like structures up to wide, reaching in length, made up of ...

''. She is the author or co-author of a considerable number of botanical names of fossil plants, such as ''

Danziella ''Danziella'' is a genus of extinct vascular plants of the Early Devonian (around ). Fossils found in the Artois region of northern France were first described as ''Zosterophyllum artesianum'', but a later review by Edwards showed that they did ...

'' D.Edwards (2006) and ''

Demersatheca ''Demersatheca'' is a genus of extinct vascular plants of the Early Devonian (Pragian, around ). Fossils were first found in the Posongchong Formation of eastern Yunnan, China. The plant had smooth leafless stems at least 1 mm in diameter, ...

'' C.-S. Li & D.Edwards (1996).

Distinctions

* Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

in 1996.Professor Dianne Edwards FRS – The first plants
/ref> *President of the

Palaeontological Association The Palaeontological Association (PalAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1957 for the promotion of the study of palaeontology and allied sciences. Publications The Association publishes two main journals: ' ...

, 1996-1998. *Awarded the

for Services to

Botany 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 w ...

in 1999. * Trustee of 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. ...

, London. * 2004 winner of the

Lyell Medal The Lyell Medal is a prestigious annual scientific medal given by the Geological Society of London, equal in status to the Murchison Medal. This medal is awarded based on one Earth Scientist's exceptional contribution of research to the scientific ...

. * Founding Fellow of the

Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales ( Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh natio ...

and in July 2010 was appointed as its inaugural Vice-President for Science, Technology and Medicine. *President of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

, 2012–2015. * PhD '' honoris causa'' at the Faculty of Science and Technology at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

, Sweden, since 2014.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Dianne 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 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 Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh