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Richard Pankhurst (botanist)

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Occupation
  
Botanist

Full Name
  
Richard John Pankhurst

Died
  
26 March 2013, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Books
  
Practical taxonomic computing, Biological identification

Richard Pankhurst (born Richard John Pankhurst, 1940–2013) was a British computer scientist, botanist and academic. From 1963 to 1966 he worked at CERN, then from 1966 to 1974 on computer-aided design at Cambridge University, and from 1974 to 1991 at the Natural History Museum as curator of the British herbarium. In 1991, he became a Principal Scientific Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

He published over fifty peer reviewed papers and sat on several committees:

  • Botanical Society of the British Isles: Committee for Scotland; Database Committee
  • Botanical Society of Scotland: Council
  • Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG): Descriptors Group (as convenor)
  • International Organisation for Plant Information: Information Systems Committee, Checklist Committee (co-convener)

    • His book Biological Identification (1978) has been described as " the first textbook on computer methods in identification".

    Pankhurst died in 2013, a year after the species Taraxacum pankhurstianum, endemic to St. Kilda, was named in his honour, for his suggestion that the seed from which it was grown at Edinburgh be collected.

    Selected works

  • Pankhurst, R.J. (1970), "A computer program for generating diagnostic keys" (PDF), The Computer Journal, 13 (2): 145–151, doi:10.1093/comjnl/13.2.145 
  • Pankhurst, R.J., ed. (1975), Biological identification with computers, Systematics Association Special Volume 7, London and Orlando: Academic Press, ISBN 978-0125448505 
  • Pankhurst, Richard J. (1978). Biological Identification: The Principles and Practice of Identification Methods in Biology. Edward Arnold. ISBN 9780839113447. 
  • Pankhurst, Richard J.; Mullin, J.M. (1991). Flora of the Outer Hebrides. ISBN 9781907807497. 
  • Pankhurst, Richard J. (1991). Practical Taxonomic Computing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521417600. 
  • Pankhurst, R.J. (1993), "Principles and practices of identification", in R. Fortuner, Advances in computer methods for systematic biology: Artificial intelligence, databases, computer vision, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 125–136, ISBN 0801844924 

    • References

    Richard Pankhurst (botanist) Wikipedia
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