| Authorised form of name | Raven; John Albert; botanist |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Wimbish, North Essex, England |
| Date of birth | 25/06/1941 |
| Place of death | Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland |
| Date of death | 23 May 2024 |
| Occupation | botanist |
| Research field | Astronomy |
| Invertebrate zoology |
| Vertebrate zoology |
| Molecular biology |
| Biochemistry |
| Botany |
| Activity | Education:
Friends' School, Saffron Walden; Cambridge University (St John’s College) BA 1963; PhD 1967.
Career:
Lectured at Cambridge; moved to Dundee (1971); employed at the University of Dundee (1971-2008), as personal chair (1980); John Boyd Baxter Professor of Biology (1995- 2008); co-founding editor of peer reviewed scientific journal Plant, Cell & Environment (1978).
Memberships:
FRSE 1981
Botanical Society of Edinburgh (President 1986–88)
Awards/Medals:
Award of Excellence from Phycological Society of America 2002
Honorary Life Member of the British Phycological Society 2006 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 15/03/1990 |
| Age at election | 48 |
| RSActivity | Committees:
Sectional Committee 5: Earth & environmental sciences (December 2012 - November 2015)
Sectional Committee 9: Patterns in populations (November 1998 - November 2001) |
| Relationships | Parents: John Harold Edward Raven and Evelyn Falls (of Saffron Walden). |
| OtherInfo | John Raven devoted most of his working life to studying algae that float in the upper levels of the ocean. He explored how resources such as carbon dioxide, light and trace minerals interact to limit primary productivity in these evolutionarily ancient organisms, which underpin marine ecosystems and recycle carbon.
He combined theoretical and laboratory studies, and extends from processes in individual plant cells to the biogeochemical exchanges that sustain the water and carbon cycles. His models have made it possible to test the effect of raised concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the ocean surface.
He examined the evolution of land plants, developing models to predict the likelihood of plant life on other planets and the biological signals that might reveal their presence. In 2005, he led a Royal Society review of the increasing acidity of the oceans with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. |
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| Source | The Royal Society Fellows Directory, Professor John Raven FRS, [URL: https://royalsociety.org/people/john-raven-12149/; last accessed: 29/01/2025]
Current Biology, Howard Griffiths, 9 September 2024, John Raven (1941–2024), ObituaryVolume 34, Issue 17pR802-R804, [URL: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)01008-X; last accessed: 29/01/2025] |
| Code | NA4131 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1990/28 | Raven, John Albert: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1983 |
| EC/2002/47 | Raven, Peter: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| IM/003751 | Raven, John Albert | 1990 |