Patricia Bergquist

Dame Patricia Bergquist
Born	Patricia Rose Smyth 10 March 1933(1933-03-10) Auckland, New Zealand
Died	9 September 2009(2009-09-09) (aged 76)
Nationality	New Zealand

Dame Patricia Rose Bergquist, DBE, MSc (Hons), PhD, DSc, FRSNZ (10 March 1933 — 9 September 2009) was a New Zealand scientist who specialized in anatomy and taxonomy. She was Professor Emerita of Zoology and Honorary Professor of Anatomy at the University of Auckland.

Following her doctorate she studied overseas, initially at Yale University where she broadened her systematic expertise, she became an educator and researcher at the University of Auckland on matters related to anatomy, taxonomy and zoology, with particular interest in the marine sponge. She felt a stable framework of higher level classification which would permit recognition of generic relationships and facilitate descriptions of new species was missing and has played an enormous role in helping this facilitation.

She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 for her contributions to science. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ).

Writings

She co-authored (with Mary E. Sinclair) The Morphology and Behaviour of Larvae of Some Intertidal Sponges for the New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, which was published on 20 October 1967.

Death

Bergquist died of breast cancer on 9 September 2009, aged 76.