Michael Francis Fay (born 1960) is a British geneticist and botanist currently serving as Senior Research Leader, Conservation Genetics, at the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

Life

After studying at

University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Aberystwyth University () is a Public university, public Research university, research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The university has over 8,000 stude ...

and the

Welsh Plant Breeding Station The Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) is a department of Aberystwyth University within its Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, and is located in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales. It has a remit for teaching, researc ...

, Fay was awarded a PhD in 1989 for his thesis on

genetic resources Genetic resources are genetic material of actual or potential value, where genetic material means any material of plant, animal, microbial genetics, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity. Genetic resources is one of the ...

in ''

Trifolium Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversity ...

'' (

clover Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversit ...

). He started working at Kew in 1986. In 2000, he received the

Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society __NOTOC__ A bicentennial or bicentenary is the two-hundredth anniversary of a part, or the celebrations thereof. It may refer to: Europe * French Revolution bicentennial, commemorating the 200th anniversary of 14 July 1789 uprising, celebrated ...

, and has served on its governing council for several terms since 2003. He was awarded the 2022 JBS Haldane Lecture from the Genetics Society. He is currently Co-Chair of the Orchid Specialist Group of the

Species Survival Commission The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

. He served as chief editor of the ''

Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society The ''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'' is a scientific journal publishing original papers relating to the taxonomy of all plant groups and fungi, including anatomy, biosystematics, cytology, ecology, ethnobotany, electron microscopy, ...

'' from 2008 to 2023 and has served on the editorial boards for ''

Annals of Botany ''Annals of Botany'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing experimental, theoretical and applied papers on all aspects of plant biology. As of 2024, the Chief Editor is Rowan Sage. The journal is owned and managed by thAnnals o ...

'', ''

Curtis's Botanical Magazine ''The Botanical Magazine; or Flower-Garden Displayed'', is an illustrated publication which began in 1787. The longest running botanical magazine, it is widely referred to by the subsequent name ''Curtis's Botanical Magazine''. Each of the issue ...

'' and other journals. Fay researches

conservation genetics Conservation genetics is an interdisciplinary subfield of population genetics that aims to understand the dynamics of genes in a population for the purpose of natural resource management, conservation of genetic diversity, and the prevention of ...

and

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

. Among many other publications, he is an author of all iterations to date of the

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) is an informal international group of systematic botanists who collaborate to establish a consensus on the taxonomy of flowering plants (angiosperms) that reflects new knowledge about plant relationships disc ...

, and in 2017 he co-authored an encyclopedia on

vascular plants Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue ( ...

entitled ''Plants of the World'' with Maarten Christenhusz and

Mark Wayne Chase Mark Wayne Chase (born 1951) is a US-born British botanist. He is noted for work in plant classification and evolution, and one of the instigators of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group-classification for flowering plants which is partly based on DNA ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fay, Michael Francis 1960 births 20th-century British scientists 21st-century British scientists Botanists active in Kew Gardens British botanists British geneticists Alumni of Aberystwyth University Living people British LGBTQ scientists Gay academics Gay scientists Fellows of the Linnean Society of London