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Director - Professor Sir Peter Crane FRS

Peter Crane

Professor Sir Peter Crane FRS, who was awarded a knighthood in the Birthday Honours list on 12 June 2004, was the Director of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1999 to September 2006. Professor Crane holds academic appointments in the Department of Botany at the University of Reading, the Department of Geology at Royal Holloway College, University of London and the Department of Biological Sciences at Imperial College. He was elected to the Royal Society - the U.K. Academy of Sciences - in 1998 and currently serves on their Council. In 2001 he was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Press Release,
4 Nov 2005:

Director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to step down

Sir Peter stepped down as Director after seven years at Kew to take up a professorship at the University of Chicago. He said, “Kew has been at the centre of my life for the past seven years. It is very hard to let go. However, world-leading organisations like Kew need a regular infusion of new ideas and energy to stay at the top of their game. This is also the right time for me to return to Chicago”.

Professor Crane joined the Field Museum in Chicago in 1982 as Assistant Curator in the Department of Geology, and from 1992 to 1999 served as Director with overall responsibility for the Museum's scientific programs. While in Chicago he also held appointments as Lecturer in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology and Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

His period at the Royal Botanic Gardens was remarkable for the designation of World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2003, and for major achievements on a number of different fronts, including improved visitor attendance, increased conservation impact, stronger scientific research, improved funding, improved income generation, and a major capital programme which has included renovation of key buildings and landscape features. Professor Crane's own research integrates studies of living and fossil plants to understand large-scale patterns and processes of plant evolution. He is the author of more than 100 scientific publications, including several books on plant evolution. Increasingly he is also engaged in a variety of initiatives focused on the conservation of plant diversity.

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