Claire N. Spottiswoode

Claire N. Spottiswoode, 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, and is also a visiting research associate at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.

Biography Spottiswoode studied zoology and botany at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 2001 with Bachelor of Science and Honours degrees. 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.

She remained at the University of Cambridge after completing her PhD, She held the Royal Society's Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from 2008 to 2013. In 2013, she was awarded a L'Oreal "Women in Science" Fellowship. By 2016, she was a senior research fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. 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. In 2025, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences.

Selected works