Person

May, Valerie (1916 - 2007)

Born
1916
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Died
27 June 2007
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Phycologist
Alternative Names
  • Jones, Valerie (married name)

Summary

Valerie May was Honorary Curator of Cryptogams (later Honorary Phycologist) at the National Herbarium of New South Wales between 1960 and 1986. She was a pioneer in research on toxic algae, being the first to identify the phenomenon of toxic blue-green algae and its cause. Her first paper on the topic was published in 1966 but her findings were largely ignored until a major outbreak of the algae in the 1990s was responsible for a large number of livestock deaths. As Curator May negotiated transfer of A. H. S. Lucas algal collection (approximately 5000 specimens) from CSIRO to the National Herbarium of New South Wales. The red algal genus Valeriemaya was named in her honour.

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Details

Chronology

1936
Education - BSc (hons), University of Sydney
1939 - 1940
Award - Linnean Macleay Fellowship (Botany), for study at the University of Sydney
1960 - 1986
Career position - Honorary Curator of Cryptogams (later Honorary Phycologist), National Herbarium of New South Wales
1987 - 2007
Career position - Honorary Research Associate, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Related Awards

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

  • McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Journal Articles

  • Carey, Jane, 'Valerie May (1916- )', Australasian Science, 20 (9) (1999), 1999. Details
  • King, Robert J.; and Briggs, Barbara G., 'Valerie May - fifty years of phycology', Telopea, 3 (2) (1988), 273-9. Details

Resources

See also

  • Hooker, Claire, Irresistible Forces: Australian Women in Science (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2004), 215 pp. Details

Rebecca Rigby and Helen Cohn

Created: 25 January 2012, Last modified: 7 July 2022

EOAS ID: biogs/P004926b.htm

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