Professor Lorna Ann Casselton FRS (née Smith; born 18 July 1938, Rochford) is Emeritus Professor of Fungal Genetics in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Oxford, and is known for her genetic and molecular analysis of the mushroom Coprinus cinereus.[1]
The daughter of William Charles Henry Smith and Cecile Smith (née Bowman), she attended Southend High School for Girls. From University College London she gained a BSc and a PhD in 1964.
Casselton began her career in lecturing and research as an assistant lecturer at Royal Holloway College in London. She was Professor of Genetics at Queen Mary, University of London from 1989-91 and was later awarded an AFRC/BBSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, followed by a BBSRC Senior Research Fellowship in 1995.[1]
Professor Casselton was a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford from 1993-2003, and was appointed Professor of Fungal Genetics at Oxford in 1997. Her specialism is Sexual Development in Fungi.[2] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. She was a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford from 1993 to 2003, and has been an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford since 2000. She was a member of the Royal Society's Council from 2002-2003, and rejoined the Council in 2006 as Vice President and Foreign Secretary, replacing Professor Dame Julia Higgins.[1][2] She became a Member of the Academia Europaea in 2008, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science of University College London in September 2010.[3]
As Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Professor Casselton has given the Royal Society Rutherford Lecture in South Africa and the Blackett Lecture in India, travelling to 27 different countries during three and a half years in office.[3]
She married Peter John Casselton in 1961, divorcing him in 1978. She married William Joseph Dennis Tollett in 1981.