Georgina Mace
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Dame Georgina Mary Mace, One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (12 July 1953 – 19 September 2020) was a British ecologist and
conservation scientist A conservation scientist is a museum professional who works in the field of conservation science and whose focus is on the research of cultural heritage (e.g. art, artifacts, buildings, and monuments) through scientific inquiry. Conservation scien ...
. She was Professor of
Biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
and
Ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
s at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
, and previously Professor of Conservation Science and Director of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Population Biology,
Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
(2006–2012) and Director of Science at the
Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...
(2000–2006).


Education

Georgina Mace was born in Lewisham borough of London. Her father was Dr. Bill Mace, a rheumatologist, and her mother was Josephine Mace, a nurse. and educated at the
City of London School for Girls (''O Lord Direct us'') , established = 1894 , closed = , type = Independent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmistress , head = Jenny Brown , r_head_label = ...
before studying at the
University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1976. She was awarded a PhD on the evolutionary ecology of small mammals in 1979 from the
University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...
for research supervised by
Paul H. Harvey Paul H. Harvey One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 19 January 1947) is a British evolutionary biologist. He is Professor of Zoology and was head of the zoology department ...
.


Research and career

Her research interests mainly involved measuring the trends and consequences of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change. She started her career at the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
to study the impact of inbreeding in zoological collections. Mace continued this work and further researched captive population ecology by studying
population viability Population viability analysis (PVA) is a species-specific method of risk assessment frequently used in conservation biology. It is traditionally defined as the process that determines the probability that a population will go extinct within a given ...
in zoos. Mace commented that "It was exciting to make quantitative scientific contributions to conservation" She was President of the British Ecological Society, President of the Society for Conservation Biology, a member of the Science Committee of Diversitas. Mace was editor of the '' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Series B, Biological Sciences)'' from 2008 to 2010. In 2000, Mace became Director of Science at the
Institute of Zoology The Institute of Zoology (IoZ) is the research division of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in England. It is a government-funded research institute specialising in scientific issues relevant to the conservation of animal species and their hab ...
in London, during which time she was instrumental in developing the criteria for listing species in the
IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
, the most comprehensive inventory on the conservation status of the world's
species conservation Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habita ...
contributing to the maintenance of global biodiversity and managed by
IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
. Prior to these changes, the Red List was based on nominations from experts rather than data, the changes instigated by Mace and her colleagues took 10 years to be implemented by the IUCN. Many
Regional Red List A Regional Red List is a report of the threatened status of species within a certain country or region. It is based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an inventory of the conservation status of species on a global scale. Regional Red ...
publications are now increasingly based on the same criteria, which account for climate change and other environmental factors in determining extinction threats. Since 2002 she and her colleagues have worked to establish methods for evaluating
biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
and the
ecosystem service Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. Th ...
s it provides, and changes in biodiversity that have been provisionally measured by the
Red List Index Summary of 2006 IUCN Red List categories. The ''Red List Index (RLI)'', based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, is an indicator of the changing state of global biodiversity. It defines the conservation status of major species groups, ...
. Mace was also actively involved in the biodiversity sections of the " Millennium Ecosystem Assessment" which was conducted from 2002 through 2005. Mace stated that "all the evidence to date is that when societies put their mind to solving a problem, they can generally do it." In 2006, Mace became director of the
Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
Natural Environment Research Council's Centre for Population Biology at
Silwood Park Silwood Park is the rural campus of Imperial College London, England. It is situated near the village of Sunninghill, near Ascot in Berkshire. Since 1986, there have been major developments on the site with four new college buildings. Adjacent ...
. After 2012 Mace acted as Director of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research (CBER) at University College London. She was also an Academic Editor of PLOS Biology, the
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
online journal and supported open-access policy to scientific publications. In 2018, Mace was appointed as a member of the Adaptation Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, advising the UK and devolved governments on progress made in preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.


Honours and awards

Mace was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire 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 ...
(OBE) in 1998,
Commander of the Order of the British Empire 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 ...
(CBE) in 2007 for services to environmental science, and
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire 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 ...
(DBE) in the
2016 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2016 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...
for services to science. Mace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002. In July 2007 she was awarded an Honorary
Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
degree by the
University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...
for her work on biodiversity, followed by another Doctorate Honoris Causa, from the
University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...
, Switzerland, in 2018. She was the winner of the 2007 International Cosmos Prize. In 2011 she received the Ernst Haeckel Prize by the European Ecological Federation. In 2016 Mace won the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences. In 2016 she was also awarded, jointly with
Sandra Knapp Sandra Diane Knapp (born 1956) is an American-born botanist. She is a merit researcher of the Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London and from 2018 was the president of the Linnean Society of London. While working at the Natural ...
, the
Linnean Medal The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or (as has been common since 1958) to one of each in the same year. The medal was of gold until 1976, and ...
of the Linnean Society She received a President's Medal from the British Ecological Society, and the 2018 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Ecology and Conservation Biology, jointly with Gretchen Daily, for developing vital tools facilitating science-based policies "to combat species loss". The extinct
rice rat Oryzomyini is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of the family Cricetidae. It includes about 120 species in about thirty genera,Weksler et al., 2006, table 1 distributed from the eastern United States to the southernmost parts of S ...
''
Megalomys georginae ''Megalomys georginae'' is an extinct species of rice rat from Barbados, that belongs in the genus ''Megalomys ''Megalomys'' is a genus of rodent in the family Cricetidae, part of the tribe Oryzomyini. The genus contains five large rodents from ...
'' from
Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
was named after her.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mace, Georgina 1953 births 2020 deaths British conservationists British ecologists Women ecologists Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Female Fellows of the Royal Society People educated at the City of London School for Girls Alumni of the University of Sussex Fellows of the Royal Society Linnean Medallists Winners of the Heineken Prize