First Irish Botanist Recognized for Groundbreaking Research on Climate Change and Fossil Plants
We are proud to announce that Professor Jennifer McElwain, Principal Investigator at the PlantClimateLab and Chair of Botany in Trinity College Dublin’s School of Natural Sciences, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. This prestigious honour recognises her exceptional contributions to environmental science, particularly her pioneering research on fossil plants and their role in understanding past atmospheric changes and climate events.
Prof. McElwain’s groundbreaking work has reshaped our understanding of Earth’s atmosphere over millions of years. Through her research on fossil plants, she has uncovered critical insights into how greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sulphur dioxide – have influenced climate change and biodiversity throughout history. Her research has also focused on investigating the connection between atmospheric changes and plant extinction events, especially during the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction around 200 million years ago.
Reflecting on her election, Prof. McElwain shared,
“I’m deeply honoured to have been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. My professional life has been devoted to using plants – both fossil and living – as ‘sensors’ or ‘proxies’ of past atmospheric gas content to study the evolution of atmospheric composition. This work feels more important than ever, as global climate change continues to impact the world. My team and I have discovered that one of the common denominators of past extinction events is that Earth’s biota faced substantial and rapid global warming, often caused by the release of large volumes of greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane. We are seeing similar conditions unfold today, and it’s crucial that we intensify our efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions and invest in green technologies.”
Prof. McElwain’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Society makes her the first botanist in Ireland to receive this honor since Henry Horatio Dixon in 1930. Her distinguished career has earned her numerous accolades, including the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in Environmental Sciences (2022) and the President’s Medal of the Palaeontological Association (2017). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy in 2017 and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2019.
This recognition underscores Prof. McElwain’s ongoing dedication to advancing scientific knowledge about climate change and highlights the essential role that plants play in shaping both our planet’s past and its future.
