Alison Richard

Alison Richard Building, Cambridge

Dame Alison Fettes Richard, DBE, DL (born 1 March 1948) is an English anthropologist, conservationist and university administrator. She was the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,^[2] the third Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge since the post became full-time, and the second woman.^[3]

Early life

Alison Richard was born in Kent. She attended the Queenswood School and was an undergraduate in Anthropology at Newnham College, Cambridge, before gaining a PhD from King's College London in 1973 with a thesis titled Social organization and ecology of propithecus verreaux grandidier.^[4]

Research and teaching

In 1972, she moved to Yale University where she taught and continued her research on the ecology and social behavior of wild primates in Central America, West Africa, the Himalayan foothills of Pakistan, and the southern forests of Madagascar. She was named Professor of Anthropology in 1986 and chaired the Department of Anthropology at Yale from 1986 to 1990. From 1991 to 1994 she was the Director of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, which houses one of the world’s most important university natural history collections. In 1998 she was named the Franklin Muzzy Crosby Professor of the Human Environment.^[5]

Richard is best known for her studies of the sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi), a lemur of southern and western Madagascar. With collaborators and students, she led a program of field observation, capture and release, anatomical measurement, and genetic and hormone sampling, of more than 700 individually known sifaka from 1984 to the present; this is one of the largest primate populations continuously observed for such a long period. The research has yielded valuable insights into sifaka life-histories, demography, social behavior, and genetics. These, in turn, expand the understanding of the variation in the lives and biology of the members of the primate order.

University administration

From 1994 until 2002, she was Provost of Yale University with operational responsibility for the University’s financial and academic programs and planning. From 2003 to 2010, Richard was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. During her tenure, she led several major changes in university policy, ranging from intellectual property to undergraduate financial aid, re-organized management of the University’s endowment, and expanded Cambridge’s global partnerships, most notably in the US, China, India, Singapore, and the Persian Gulf.^[6] She launched and completed a billion-pound fund-raising campaign, the largest ever for a UK university.^[7]

Conservation

In the 1970s, in collaboration with RW Sussman (Washington University) and G Ramanantsoa (University of Madagascar), she helped establish a nature reserve at Beza-Mahafaly, southwest Madagascar, which was formally incorporated into the Madagascar Nature Reserve system in 1986.^[8] For over thirty years, she has worked with colleagues to help conserve the reserve’s unique natural heritage, sponsor training and research by students from Madagascar and elsewhere, and to enhance socio-economic opportunities for people living in and around the forest. Over the years, these conservation efforts have been funded by the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation,^[9] WWF,^[8] the Schwartz Foundation,^[8] and USAID.

Advisory boards

Richard is currently a member of the Boards of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,^[10] and of WWF International.^[11] She serves as an advisor to the Liz Claiborne/Art Ortenberg Foundation, the Arcadia Foundation, and to the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. She is also Chair of the Advisory Board of the executive search firm Perrett Laver.

Honours

Richard was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.^[12] In 2005, she was appointed Officier de l’Ordre National in Madagascar.^[5] She has received honorary doctorates from universities in the UK (Edinburgh, Queens University Belfast, Anglia Ruskin, Exeter, Cambridge), China (Peking, Chinese University of Hong Kong), Madagascar (University of Antananarivo), Canada (York), Korea (Ewha Women’s University) and the US (Yale), and in 2011 she was made a Fellow of King’s College, London. She was awarded the Green Globe Award of the Rainforest Alliance (1998), and the Verrill Medal, Yale University (2008). She was made Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Cambridgeshire in 2004.^[13] She is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish, Newnham and Wolfson Colleges, University of Cambridge.

Clubs

She is a member of the Athenaeum Club.

Footnotes

See also

• List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge

External links

• Vice-Chancellor's Office, University of Cambridge
• Interview of Alison Richard by Alan Macfarlane 21 August 2008 (film)

University of Cambridge People Chancellor The Lord Sainsbury of Turville (predecessors) Vice-Chancellor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (predecessors) Academics Alumni Heads of Colleges Professorships Colleges Christ’s Churchill Clare Clare Hall Corpus Christi Darwin Downing Emmanuel Fitzwilliam Girton Gonville and Caius Homerton Hughes Hall Jesus King’s Lucy Cavendish Magdalene Murray Edwards (New Hall) Newnham Pembroke Peterhouse Queens’ Robinson St Catharine’s St Edmund’s St John’s Selwyn Sidney Sussex Trinity Trinity Hall Wolfson Schools, faculties & departments ADC Theatre Department of Anglo-Saxon Department of Architecture Botanic Gardens Cambridge University Press (journals) Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Institute of Astronomy Judge Business School Cavendish Laboratory Centre for India & Global Business Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Department of Chemistry Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology School of Clinical Medicine Computer Laboratory Institute of Criminology Faculty of Divinity Department of Earth Sciences Faculty of Education Institute of Continuing Education Department of Engineering Department of Geography Godwin Laboratory Gurdon Institute Hamilton Kerr Institute Herchel Smith Laboratory for Medicinal Chemistry Hetero-Genesys Laboratory Department of History and Philosophy of Science Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science Institute for Manufacturing Faculty of Law Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy Centre for Mathematical Sciences Centre for Theoretical Cosmology Faculty of Mathematics McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Cambridge–MIT Institute Laboratory of Molecular Biology Faculty of Music National Institute for Environmental eScience Needham Research Institute Department of Oncology Faculty of Philosophy Department of Physiology Department of Politics and International Studies Centre for Quantum Computation Sainsbury Laboratory Scott Polar Research Institute Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre Student life Students' Union Graduate Union Air Squadron Amateur Drama BlueSci Buddhist Society Cam FM Christian Union Conservatives Footlights May Week May Balls Jazz Orchestra Labour Club Liberal Democrats Light Entertainment Society Moral Sciences Club Musical Society Philosophical Society SCA Spaceflight Union Society Sport Boxing Cricket Cross Country Dancing Football Gliding Golf Handball Ice Hockey Real Tennis Rowing Boat Club (CUBC) Lightweights (CULRC) Women (CUWBC) Rugby Union Tennis Competitions The Boat Race Cuppers Henley Boat Races Rugby League Varsity Match University Golf Match Rugby Union Varsity Match Affiliates Cambridge University Health Partners Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Addenbrooke's Hospital Categories Chancellors Vice-Chancellors Colleges Departments Awards and Prizes Lists Terminology Category Commons Portal Wikinews WikiProject Wikisource