Richard Pankhurst (botanist)

Richard Pankhurst
Born Richard John Pankhurst
1940
Died March 26, 2013(2013-03-26) (aged 72–73)
Occupation Botanist

Richard Pankhurst (born Richard John Pankhurst, 1940[1]–2013) was a British computer scientist, botanist and academic. From 1963 to 1966 he worked at CERN, then from 1966 to 1974 on computer-aided design at Cambridge University, and from 1974 to 1991 at the Natural History Museum as curator of the British herbarium. In 1991, he became a Principal Scientific Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.[2]

He published over fifty peer reviewed papers[2] and sat on several committees:[2]

His book Biological Identification (1978) has been described as " the first textbook on computer methods in identification".[2]

Pankhurst died in 2013,[3] a year after the species Taraxacum pankhurstianum, endemic to St. Kilda, was named in his honour, for his suggestion that the seed from which it was grown at Edinburgh be collected.[4][5][6]

Selected works

References

  1. "Richard Pankhurst". Virtual International Authority File. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Dr. Richard J. Pankhurst". BioCISE. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  3. "In Memoriam Dr Richard Pankhurst". Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  4. Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh. "New Dandelion Found". Retrieved June 29, 2012.
  5. BBC News. "New species of dandelion discovered on St Kilda island". Retrieved June 29, 2012.
  6. Richards, A J; Ferguson-Smyth, C C (2012). "Taraxacum pankhurstianum (Asteraceae), a new dandelion endemic to St Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland". New Journal of Botany 2 (1): 16–19. doi:10.1179/2042349712Y.0000000006. ISSN 2042-3489.


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