Sir Peter Crane, FRS (born 18 July 1954) is a former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since 2002. He was awarded a knighthood on 12 June 2004.
Crane is an alumnus of the University of Reading. His own research interests involve the integration of studies of living and fossil plants, in order to understand large-scale patterns and processes of plant evolution. He has previously held positions at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (as assistant curator in the Department of Geology, and director with overall responsibility for scientific programs) and at the University of Chicago (professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences). In November 2005, Sir Peter announced that he would resign his position at Kew to accept a faculty appointment in the University of Chicago’s Department of Geophysical Sciences beginning July 1, 2006. On March 4, 2009, it was announced Crane would leave the University of Chicago to become the new dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, succeeding James Speth. His appointment is effective September 2009.
Crane is married with two children.
Famous quotes containing the words peter and/or crane:
“When the Day of Judgement dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.””
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“when wine redeems the sight,
Narrowing the mustard scansions of the eyes,”
—Hart Crane (1899–1932)