John Albert Raven FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(born 25 June 1941) 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 ...

, and

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

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

at University of Dundee and the

University of Technology Sydney The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Although its origins are said to trace back to the 1830s, the university was founded in its current form in 1988. As of 2021 ...

. His primary research interests lie in the ecophysiology and

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

of marine and terrestrial primary producers such as

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

s and

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

Education

Raven was educated at the

Friends' School, Saffron Walden Friends' School (known as Walden School from 2016–17) was a Quaker independent school located in Saffron Walden, Essex, situated approximately 12 miles south of the city of Cambridge, England. The school was co-educational and accommodated chil ...

and

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, receiving a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in

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 1963. He remained at Cambridge to complete a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in Botany (plant biophysics) in 1967, specialising in the

membrane transport In cellular biology, membrane transport refers to the collection of mechanisms that regulate the passage of solutes such as ions and small molecules through biological membranes, which are lipid bilayers that contain proteins embedded in them. Th ...

processes and

bioenergetics Bioenergetics is a field in biochemistry and cell biology that concerns energy flow through living systems. This is an active area of biological research that includes the study of the transformation of energy in living organisms and the study of ...

of giant-celled algae.

Career

After a period as a lecturer at Cambridge, Raven moved to the University of Dundee in 1971, and he remained at Dundee until his formal retirement in 2008. He was appointed there to a

personal chair Academic ranks in the United Kingdom are the titles, relative seniority and responsibility of employees in universities. In general the country has three academic career pathways: one focused on research, one on teaching, and one that combines th ...

in 1980, and was the John Boyd Baxter Professor of Biology from 1995 until 2008. In 1978, Raven was a co-founding editor of the influential

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

'' Plant, Cell & Environment'' with

Paul Jarvis Paul William Jarvis (born 29 June 1965) is a former English cricketer, who played in nine Tests and sixteen ODIs for England from 1988 to 1993. Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, remarked, "Jarvis always had much potential as a well-coordinated ...

, David Jennings, Harry Smith and Bob Campbell.

Research

Raven's research investigates algal life forms in the upper levels of the ocean, which underpin marine ecosystems and recycle carbon. He has explored how

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

, light and trace minerals interact to limit primary productivity in algae. Raven has research interests that range from organism-level bioenegetics, biochemistry and ecophysiology, through to wider-scale

biogeochemistry Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, t ...

palaeoecology Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...

and even

astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...

. To date, he has published more than 300 refereed research papers, over 50 book chapters, the book ''Energetics and Transport in Aquatic Plants'' (1984), and, together with

Paul Falkowski Paul G. Falkowski (born 1951) is an American biological oceanographer in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His research work focuses on phytoplankton and primary production, and hi ...

, the influential textbook ''Aquatic Photosynthesis'' (1997, 2007). In 2005, Raven led a

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 ...

review of the state and implications of ongoing

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...

.Raven, J. A. ''et al.'' (2005)
Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Royal Society, London, UK. , Raven is active in both research and teaching, despite officially retiring in 2008 when he warned:

Awards and honours

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1981. He was elected President of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh for 1986–88. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990, One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: for which his certificate of election reads: He was also a recipient of the Award of Excellence from

Phycological Society of America The Phycological Society of America (PSA) is a professional society, founded in 1946, that is dedicated to the advancement of phycology, the study of algae. The PSA is responsible for the publication of ''Journal of Phycology'' and organizes an ...

in 2002 and made an Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society in 2006.

References

Bibliography

External links

University of Dundee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raven, John Albert 1941 births Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 20th-century British botanists Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Living people Academics of the University of Dundee People educated at Friends School Saffron Walden 21st-century British botanists