Patricia Mather AO was an Australian zoologist and taxonomist known for her research into sea squirts. She became a leader in Australian marine science and internationally achieved status through her work on the Ascidiacea. She has published more than 150 papers including her major monograph on the "Australian Ascidiacea".
Early life
Patricia Mather on December 12, 1925 in Perth was raised and educated in Western Australia. She received her early indoctrination into marine science during holiday jobs sorting plankton at the CSIR Fisheries Division. After graduating from the University of Western Australia in 1948 with a B.Sc. first-class honours degree she was appointed plankton officer in the Fisheries Division at Cronulla, New South Wales. After completing her MSc in 1949 she was made a CSIR overseas student and studied in England at the University College doing a course on invertebrates. She also studied the ascidian collections in the British Natural History Museum. Patricia then went on to continue studies at the Marine Biological Association Laboratory in Plymouth. Upon her return to Australia in 1951 and work with the CSIRO as a plankton officer, she became focused on the taxonomy of the ascidiacea. Patricia married Wharton Burdett Mather, a lecturer at the University of Queensland in 1955 and left the CSIRO. Her family grew and with the assistance of a Commonwealth Graduate Award she was able to work at the University of Queensland and pursue her PhD. Waldo Schmitt from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., asked her to write a monograph on Antarctic ascidiacea located in the American national collections in the mid 1960's. Upon completion of this work she returned to Australia. She earnt her DSc. from the University of Western Australia in 1970. Mather was appointed a curator at the Queensland Museum in 1973 and later rose to senior curator. Mather published 150 scientific papers. She described 500 new species. She was secretary and late President of the Great Barrier Reef Committee in the 1970's and helped to establish the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, including providing scientific evidence to the two royal commissions which investigated drilling on the Great Barrier Reef and contributed to the drafting of legislation that formed the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority. Mather retired in 1990 but continued working at the Queensland Museum as an honorary associate until October 2011.
Awards
1991 Queensland Museum medal
1992 Australian Museum Science Association Jubilee Prize
Patricia Mather died on January 4, 2012, in Brisbane, Queensland and was survived by her three sons and six grandsons. A street is named for her in the Dutton Park Biosciences Precinct - Patricia Mather Place.
