It is with great sadness that we share news of the death of Professor Dame Georgina Mace.
Dame Georgina’s notable work on biodiversity loss and ecosystem change led to the well-known development of criteria for listing species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species and was a coordinating lead author for biodiversity in the widely regarded Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Professor Sir Duncan Wingham, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Executive Chair commented:
Dame Georgina was a very much respected member of the NERC community and served as a NERC council member from 2011-2018. During her time on council I personally found her to be a truly supportive champion of NERC and a genuine friend to those who worked alongside her. On behalf of NERC I offer our condolences to Dame Georgina’s family
Following postdoctoral positions at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and University College London, Dame Georgina became a research fellow at the Institute of Zoology in London.
From 2000 to 2006 she was director of science at the Zoological Society of London and head of the Institute of Zoology. In 2006 she moved to Imperial College London as director of the NERC Centre for Population Biology, and in 2012 she moved to University College London.
She was elected as the first president of the International Society for Conservation Biology from outside North America, and the first female president of the British Ecological Society.
Dame Georgina received a damehood for her services to science in 2016 and her contributions to the fields of population and biodiversity were globally recognised and honoured.