Professor Dame Carolyn Burns, DNZM, of Dunedin, for services to ecological research
Professor Dame Carolyn Burns is recognised as a leading international authority on the ecology of lakes.
Dame Carolyn’s pioneering research on the ecology of zooplankton has underpinned much of the modern theory of lake biomanipulation, whereby lake food webs are managed to maintain water quality and lake health.
For her research, she was awarded the International Limnological Society’s Naumann-Thienemann Medal in 2007, and more recently the Marsden Medal and the Thomson Medal from the New Zealand Association of Scientists and Royal Society of New Zealand respectively.
She was the first female President of the International Limnological Society from 1995 to 2001 and Head of Department of Zoology at the University of Otago from 1998 to 2005.
She was a member of the Marsden Fund Council and convened the Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour panel.
She was Chair of the Nature Conservation Council and a member of the National Parks and Reserves Authority until 1990.
She was a regional councillor of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) from 1984 to 1990 and chaired the New Zealand committee of IUCN members from 1986 to 1990.
She was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and the Board of Antarctica New Zealand.
Dame Carolyn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1993 and was subsequently the first woman to chair the Society’s Academy Council.