Sarah Wanless
Professor Sarah Wanless | |
|---|---|
| Born | Scarborough, England |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Aberdeen |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Marine ecology |
| Institutions | Centre for Ecology & Hydrology |
Sarah Wanless MBE FRSE is an animal ecologist in the UK and is an expert on seabirds; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.[1]
Education and career[edit]
Wanless was born in Scarborough, England and moved to Aberdeen, Scotland in 1969 for her undergraduate degree and then her PhD, which focused on northern gannets over three seasons on the island of Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde.[1]
She worked at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, the Nature Conservancy Council and the British Antarctic Survey before joining the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) permanently in 1996 as a Higher Scientific Officer.[2] She rose to Individual Merit Scientist[2] and retired in 2016 but is still involved with research[3] as Emeritus Fellow at CEH.[4]
Research[edit]
In the 1980s, Wanless began one of the first radio-tracking studies into seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, which helped to identify the foraging areas and the dangers that seabirds face due to climate change,[5] pollution, fishing and off-shore wind farms;[6] much of this research was conducted on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. She was the first female visiting scientist to the British Antarctic Survey's research station on Bird Island in South Georgia,[1] where she studied the diving behaviour of South Georgia shags for two southern summers.[3] Wanless also studied gannets on Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire[7] and researched the foraging of puffins outside of the breeding season.[8]
Over her career, Wanless published 250 papers,[9] her bird tracking data was contributed to the Global Seabird Tracking Database.[10]
Honours and awards[edit]
Wanless was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to seabird ecology.[11]
- Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2006[12]
- Awarded the Marsh Award for Conservation Biology by the Zoological Society London and the Marsh Christian Trust in 2007[13]
- Gave the British Trust for Ornithology's Witherby Memorial Lecture in 2012[14]
- Awarded the Godman-Salvin Medal by the British Ornithological Union in 2015[15]
- Named one of the Outstanding Women of Scotland in 2018 by the Saltire Society[16]
- Awarded the Peter Scott Memorial Award by the British Naturalists' Association in 2019[17]
- Received an honorary Professorship in the Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Glasgow and an honorary Professorship in the Department of Zoology at the University of Aberdeen[9]
- Given lifetime achievement awards from the UK Seabird Group[1] and the Pacific Seabird Group[9]
Bibliography[edit]
Wanless wrote The Puffin with Mike P. Harris, published in 2012 by Bloomsbury ISBN 978-1-4081-0867-3[18] a revised version of the original 1984 Poyser monograph.[19]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d "Sarah Wanless". www.saltiresociety.org.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
- ^ a b NERC UKRI (2010). "Individual Merit Promotion case studies and timelines". Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ a b Williams, Simon (24 October 2018). "Pioneering CEH scientist named as an 'Outstanding Woman of Scotland'". Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ "Conference 2019 – British Naturalists' Association". Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ "Climate change also threatens the survival of seabirds". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ "Gannets facing wind farm risks". www.irishexaminer.com. 25 May 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ Birkhead, Tim (6 May 2012). "Do Birds Have Emotions?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ "How puffins catch food outside the breeding season". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ a b c "Sarah Wanless". Pacific Seabird Group. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ BirdLife International. "World's biggest seabird tracking database shows their incredible journeys". BirdLife. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ "No. 63918". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2022. p. N25.
- ^ "Professor Sarah Wanless FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ "Marsh Christian Trust – Marsh Award for Conservation Biology". www.marshchristiantrust.org. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ "Witherby Memorial Lectures | BTO - British Trust for Ornithology". www.bto.org. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ "Medals and awards". British Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ Linklater, Magnus. "Bird woman who saw the sea warm". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ British Naturalists' Association (May 2019). "Peter Scott Memorial Award" (PDF). Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ Bloomsbury.com. "The Puffin". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
- ^ Harris, Mike P.; Wanless, Sarah (21 November 2011). The Puffin (1 ed.). T & AD Poyser.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- Living people
- Women ornithologists
- English ornithologists
- Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- People from Scarborough, North Yorkshire
- British women ecologists
- 21st-century British scientists
- 20th-century British scientists
- Members of the Order of the British Empire