Gordon Conway

Sir Gordon Richard Conway KCMG FRS FRGS FREng (6 July 1938 – 30 July 2023) was a British agricultural ecologist, who served as the president of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Royal Geographical Society. He was latterly Professor of International Development at Imperial College, London and Director of Agriculture for Impact, a grant funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on European support of agricultural development in Africa.

For the costume designer and illustrator, see Gordon Conway (costume designer).

Sir

Gordon Conway

KCMG FRS FRGS FREng
Born
Gordon Richard Conway

(1938-07-06)6 July 1938
Birmingham, England
Died30 July 2023(2023-07-30) (aged 85)
Alma materBangor University
Cambridge University
University of the West Indies
University of California, Davis
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society (2004)
KCMG (2005)
Founder's Medal (2017)
Scientific career
FieldsAgricultural Ecology
InstitutionsImperial College London
University of California, Davis
The Rockefeller Foundation
ThesisA Basic Model of Insect Reproduction and its Implications for Pest Control (1969)
Websitewww3.imperial.ac.uk/people/g.conway

Early life and education

Gordon Richard Conway was born in Birmingham on 6 July 1938.[1] He was educated at the Bangor University, Cambridge University and the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of California, Davis.

Career

In the early 1960s, working in Sabah, North Borneo, Conway became one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management. From 1970 to 1986, he was Professor of Environmental Technology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. He then directed the sustainable agriculture program of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London before becoming Representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi from 1988 to 1992. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex and Chair of the Institute of Development Studies.[2][3][4][5]

Conway was elected the eleventh President of The Rockefeller Foundation in April 1998, a position he held until 2004.[6] From 2004 to 2009 he was also President of the Royal Geographical Society.[7] He took up his appointment as the UK Department for International Development's Chief Scientific Adviser in January 2005, serving until 2009.[8][9][10][11][12]

Conway later worked at Imperial College London and headed the Bill & Melinda Gates-funded project Agriculture for Impact looking into ways to increase and enhance agricultural development for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was an independent advocacy initiative, and was based at Imperial College London and was supported through the Agriculture for Impact Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[13] According to the organisation's website, the initiative ran until the summer of 2016.[14] Agriculture for Impact also convened the Montpellier Panel, a group of international experts from the fields of agriculture, trade, policy, ecology and global development. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for East Sussex.

Death

Conway died of blood cancer on 30 July 2023, at the age of 85.[1]

Honours and awards

Books

He authored:

  • Unwelcome Harvest: agriculture and pollution (Earthscan, Island Press) ISBN 1-85383-036-4
  • The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for all in the 21st century (Penguin and University Press, Cornell) ISBN 0-8014-8610-6[19]
  • Islamophobia: a challenge for us all (The Runnymede Trust) ISBN 0-902397-98-2.

He co-authored:

References
  1. "Professor Sir Gordon Conway obituary". The Times. 9 August 2023. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
  2. "العاب متاهات". Mazesgames.com. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  3. "Dr. Gordon Conway". Ddpsc.org. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  5. Biotechnology and Hunger Archived 4 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine 8 May 2003
  6. "100 Years: The Rockefeller Foundation: Biography: Sir Gordon Conway". The Rockefeller Archive Center. Archived from the original on 28 April 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2014.
  7. "President". Archived from the original on 9 November 2007. Retrieved 24 October 2007.
  8. "The ideas interview: Gordon Conway". The Guardian. 24 October 2005. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  9. Sir Gordon Conway interview Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Summer 2006
  10. Technology adoption: the true measure of success Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine 1 May 2006
  11. "Prof Gordon Conway". Archived from the original on 14 December 2007. Retrieved 8 September 2007.
  12. "Sir Gordon Conway KCMG FRS". Iop.org. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  13. "Agriculture for Impact". Imperial College London. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  14. "Agriculture for Impact About". ag4impact.org. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  15. "Gordon Conway". Royal Society. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  17. "List of Fellows". Archived from the original on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  18. "Professor Sir Gordon Conway honoured with top geographical prize". Imperial College London. 8 May 2017. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  19. Simmonds, N. W. (1998). "Review of The Doubly Green Revolution by Gordon Conway". Nature. 391 (6663): 139. doi:10.1038/34337. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 5889833.
  20. Stewart, Zachary; Francis, Charles (2013). "Review of One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World? by Gordon Conway". Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. 37 (8): 964–967. doi:10.1080/21683565.2013.809397. ISSN 2168-3565. S2CID 155545491.
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