Christine Adair Maggs (born 8 June 1956) is a British phycologist. Formerly Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science & Technology at

Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The universi ...

, she was the first Chief Scientist of the

Joint Nature Conservation Committee The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is the public body that advises the Government of the United Kingdom and devolved administrations on UK-wide and international nature conservation. Originally established under the Environmental Pro ...

, retiring in 2022. She is now an independent non-executive Director of Ocean Harvest Technology.

Education

Maggs graduated with a Botany degree from

St Catherine's College, Oxford St Catherine's College (colloquially called St Catz or Catz) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. In 1974, it was also one of the first men's colleges to admit women. It has 528 un ...

in 1978 and a PhD from

National University of Ireland, Galway The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...

in 1983.

Research and career

Maggs worked as a postdoc at the Atlantic Research Laboratory, Nova Scotia, Canada and

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

(the latter on an Advanced

Natural Environment Research Council The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British Research Councils UK, research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several envir ...

Fellowship), before taking up a post as a lecturer at

in 1995. Her main research interests are molecular systematics of seaweeds with particular interests in alien marine algae and plants, biological conservation, and sustainable seaweed exploitation. The majority of her publications focus on red algae (

Rhodophyta Red algae, or Rhodophyta (, ; ), make up one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta comprises one of the largest phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 recognized species within over 900 genera amidst ongoing taxonomic revisions. ...

), although she has also published on

brown algae Brown algae (: alga) are a large group of multicellular algae comprising the class (biology), class Phaeophyceae. They include many seaweeds located in colder waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Brown algae are the major seaweeds of the temperate ...

and

green algae The green algae (: green alga) are a group of chlorophyll-containing autotrophic eukaryotes consisting of the phylum Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister group that contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ...

, notably showing that

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

was correct in his assertion that the genera ''

Ulva Ulva (; ) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, off the west coast of Mull. It is separated from Mull by a narrow strait, and connected to the neighbouring island of Gometra by a bridge. Much of the island is formed from Cen ...

'' and '' Enteromorpha'' were not distinct. She has described two new orders (Ahnfeltiales and Atractophorales) of alga, and three new families (Ahnfeltiaceae, Atractophoraceae, and Haemeschariaceae). She has published over a hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers. She has written three books on seaweeds: ''Seasearch Guide to Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland'', ''Green seaweeds of Britain and Ireland'', and ''Seaweeds of the British Isles''.

Editorial work

Professor Maggs has been the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Phycology for 20 years (1994-2004; joint Editor-in-Chief from 2010) and is a Managing Editor of the new BPS journal Applied Phycology, with Prof. Juliet Brodie and Editor-in-Chief Prof. John Beardall. She was Associate Editor of Journal of Biogeography from 2007-2014, Associate Editor of Journal of Phycology (2009–10), and from 1991-1993 she was Associate Editor of Phycologia, the bi-monthly journal of the International Phycological Society.

Diversity work

Professor Maggs led the

School of Biological Sciences application for an

Athena SWAN Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) is an equality charter mark framework and accreditation scheme established and managed by the UK Equality Challenge Unit (now part of Advance HE) in 2005 that recognises and celebrates good pra ...

Gold Award. This successful application made

the recipient of only the third departmental

Gold award. In 2017, Professor Maggs was awarded the British Ecological Society Equality and Diversity Champion award.

Awards and honours

In 2013, Professor Maggs was elected as a member of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the natural sciences, arts, literature, and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned society and one of its le ...

. Professor Maggs is a two-time recipient, in 1994 and 2018, of the Phycological Society of America Provasoli award for the most outstanding paper published in the Journal of Phycology. She also received the Phycological Society of America Prescott Award in 1995, and the Phycological Society of America Award of Excellence in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maggs, Christine 1956 births Living people British phycologists Women phycologists Members of the Royal Irish Academy Fellows of the Linnean Society of London 21st-century British women scientists Scientists from London Academics of Bournemouth University