Claire N. Spottiswoode, FRS is a South African evolutionary ecologist and naturalist, specialising in African birds and species interactions. She holds the Pola Pasvolsky Chair in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town, [1] and is also a visiting research associate at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. [2]
Spottiswoode studied zoology and botany at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 2001 with Bachelor of Science and Honours degrees. [3] She then undertook a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Nick Davies, which she completed in 2005. [1] Her doctoral thesis was titled "Behavioural ecology and tropical life-histories in African birds". [4]
She remained at the University of Cambridge after completing her PhD, [1] taking up a junior research fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. [5] She held the Royal Society's Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from 2008 to 2013. [6] In 2013, she was awarded a L'Oreal "Women in Science" Fellowship. [7] By 2016, she was a senior research fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. [8] [9] That same year, she returned to the University of Cape Town to take up the Pola Pasvolsky Chair in Conservation Biology at its FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology. [1] She continued her association with Cambridge as a visiting research associate in the Department of Zoology and her fellowship at Magdalene College. [2]
In 2017, Spottiswoode was awarded the Bicentenary Medal by the Linnean Society of London. [5] [10] In 2025, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. [11]
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