About the Speaker

[Photo: Jonathan Lear]

Professor Sir Peter Crane
The John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology

Peter Crane received his BSc and PhD degrees in botany from the University of Reading, UK. He also served on the faculty of the University of Reading from 1978 to 1981. In 1981 he moved to Indiana University and he joined the Field Museum in Chicago in 1982. From 1992 to 1999 he served as Director of the Field Museum with overall responsibility for the Museum’s scientific programs, during this time he also established the Field Museum Office of Environmental Programs and the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change.

From 1999 to 2006 Peter Crane was Director of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, one of the largest, most prestigious and influential botanical gardens in the world. His tenure at Kew saw strengthening and expansion of the gardens’ scientific, conservation and public programs focused on the variety of plant life. In 2002 Kew was inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Peter Crane’s directorship was also marked by major improvements to the infrastructure at Kew for the collections, for science, for the public and for staff.

Peter Crane was elected to the Royal Society – the UK academy of sciences in 1998. He is a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a Member of the German Academy Leopoldina. He was knighted in the UK for services to horticulture and conservation in 2004. Peter Crane currently serves on the Boards of WWF-UK, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian Institution.

 

Wild Nature, Gardens and the Future of Plants

The 2007 tercentenary of the birth of the Swedish naturalist and physician
Carl Linnaeus reminds us that the process of cataloguing the diversity of
plant and animal life on Earth, which he began in the mid-eighteenth
century, is still far from complete. Yet at the same time, the human impact
on the global environment continues to increase and become ever more
pervasive. In this lecture Sir Peter will review what we now know about the
variety of plant life on our planet and the prospects for its long-term
survival based on his experiences at the Field Museum, The Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew, and the University of Chicago.

When: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Location: The University Club - The Michigan Room
76 East Monroe Street
Chicago, Illinois
Lunch: 11:30 a.m. followed by Sir Peter's program at 12:00 noon
Cost: $30 per person, members and guests

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