Andrew Cunningham Scott information

Andrew Cunningham Scott (born 16 February 1952) is a British geologist, and professor emeritus at Royal Holloway University of London.^[1] He won the 2007 Gilbert H. Cady Award from the Geological Society of America for outstanding contributions to coal geology.^[2] He is widely regarded an expert on wildfire and charcoal and has highlighted the role of fire in deep time. He also contributes as a palaeobotanist and science communicator.

Scott was educated at Cannon Lane Primary School, (Pinner); St. Martins School, Northwood; Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood; and the University of London, where he obtained a BSc (Bedford College) and a PhD (Birkbeck College) studying under William Gilbert Chaloner. His thesis concerned the palaeoecology of Carboniferous Coal Measure plants. After a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, he returned to England to take up a lectureship in Geology at Chelsea College, University of London. During this period, his research concentrated on the Lower Carboniferous floras of Scotland including those from the Pettycur Volcanics and the East Kirkton Quarry.

In 1985, the geology departments at Chelsea College and Bedford College merged to form a new department at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was awarded a personal chair in 1996, becoming Professor of Applied Palaeobotany.^[3] During the 1990s, he worked on Drawings and Prints in the Royal Library that had been collected by Cassiano dal Pozzo.^[3] These were part of a project undertaken by Federico Cesi and Francesco Stelluti, founders of the Accademia dei Linceii. His book on the drawing of fossil woods was launched by Charles, Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle in 2005.

From 1998 to 2006, he was the Director of Science Communication. He was awarded a D.Sc. from the University of London for his published research. In 2003, he was made an Honorary Professor at Jilin University, Changchun, China. He was a visiting professor at Yale University in 2006–2007 and a visiting fellow at Berkeley College. During this period, his research concentrated on the occurrence of wildfire in deep time. He also became involved with the Pyrogeography research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara and published several important papers and a book on Fire on Earth.^[4][5] In 2012 he became a distinguished research fellow and was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship and became the Emeritus Professor of Geology in 2014.^[6]

Scott has been involved in many radio broadcasts including In Our Time and was the subject of a BBC documentary about his research on coal for screenhouse productions and the Open University.^[7] He has been in writing articles on geology stamps and has had a long-term collaboration with the artist Nick Shrewing working on geological stamp designs for a number of countries including the Solomon Islands, Barbados, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.

Scott is the recipient of several awards including the Presidents Award of the Geological Society of London and the Gilbert H. Cady Award from the Geological Society of America.^[2] He is also a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is a Chartered Geologist.