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Patricia Bergquist

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Dame Patricia Bergquist
DBE
Born
Patricia Rose Smyth

(1933-03-10)10 March 1933
Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand
Died9 September 2009(2009-09-09) (aged 76)
Auckland, New Zealand
Alma materAuckland University College
Spouse
Peter Leonard Bergquist
​
​
(m. 1958)​
Children1
Scientific career
FieldsZoology
InstitutionsUniversity of Auckland
ThesisThe Demospongiae of New Zealand — systematics, distribution and relationships (1961)
Doctoral advisorsWilliam Roy McGregor
John Morton

Dame Patricia Rose Bergquist DBE (née Smyth, 10 March 1933 – 9 September 2009) was a New Zealand zoologist who specialised in anatomy and taxonomy. At the time of her death, she was professor emerita of zoology and honorary professor of anatomy with radiology at the University of Auckland.

Early life, family and education

Born Patricia Rose Smyth in the Auckland suburb of Devonport on 10 March 1933, Bergquist was the daughter of William Smyth, an electrician, and Bertha Ellen Smyth (née Penny), a homemaker.[1][2] She was educated at Devonport Primary School, and then Takapuna Grammar School where she was dux in her final year.[1] She then began studying at Auckland University College in 1950, graduating MSc with first-class honours in botany in 1956; the title of her master's thesis was Contributions to the study of the loxsomaceae.[1][3] After completing a second MSc equivalent in zoology, she undertook doctoral studies at Auckland, obtaining her PhD, supervised by William Roy McGregor and John Morton, on the taxonomy of the Porifera in 1961.[1][4] Bergquist was the first person to earn a doctoral degree from the University of Auckland.[5]

In 1958, she married Peter Bergquist, a noted molecular biologist, and the couple went on to have one daughter.[1][6]

Academic and research career

Following her doctorate, Patricia Bergquist studied overseas, initially at Yale University where she broadened her systematic expertise, before returning to New Zealand and becoming 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.[1] When Bergquist received a Personal Chair at the University of Auckland, she was the first woman at that university to do so.[7]

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.

In 1979, Bergquist was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Auckland, on the basis on 28 submitted publications.[8][9]

Honours and awards

Bergquist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1982,[10] and in 1989 she was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand.[8] In the 1994 New Year Honours, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to science.[11]

Her husband, Peter Bergquist, was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to science, in the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours.[6][12]

Bergquist featured as one of the Royal Society of New Zealand's "150 women in 150 words" project in 2017.[5]

Death

Patricia Bergquist died of breast cancer in Auckland on 9 September 2009, aged 76.[1][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Nicholson, Louise F.B. "Patricia Rose Bergquist (1933–2009)". Royal Society of New Zealand. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  2. ^ "Births". Auckland Star. 13 March 1933. p. 1. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  3. ^ Smyth, Patricia Rose (1956). "Contributions to the study of the loxsomaceae". Auckland University College. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  4. ^ Bergquist, Patricia R. (1961). The Demospongiae of New Zealand – systematics, distribution and relationships (Thesis). Auckland University College. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  5. ^ a b "Patricia Bergquist". Royal Society Te Apārangi. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  6. ^ a b "Peter Bergquist". Office of the Governor-General. 29 August 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  7. ^ "ATL: Unpublished Collections". tiaki.natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  8. ^ a b Taylor, Alister; Coddington, Deborah (1994). Honoured by the Queen – New Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa. p. 65. ISBN 0-908578-34-2.
  9. ^ Bergquist, Patricia R. (1979). "Publications submitted for the degree of D.Sc". University of Auckland. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  10. ^ "List of all Fellows with surnames A–C". Royal Society of New Zealand. 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  11. ^ "No. 53528". The London Gazette (2nd supplement). 31 December 1993. p. 33.
  12. ^ "Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee honours list 2012". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 4 June 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  13. ^ "Patricia Bergquist death notice". New Zealand Herald. 11 September 2009.

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