Doug Butterworth

Douglas Stuart Butterworth is a retired South African fisheries scientist and applied mathematician. He is professor emeritus of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town, where he is the director of the Marine Resource Assessment and Management (MARAM) research group.

Early life and education Butterworth attended the Western Province Preparatory School in Cape Town, and he matriculated from nearby Bishops Diocesan College in 1963. Trained as a physicist, he holds an MSc from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in fundamental particle physics from University College London.

After his doctoral degree, he spent four months as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Natal. He returned to Cape Town in 1977 to work in applied mathematics for the Sea Fisheries Branch, unable to find a job in physics. He became involved in fisheries research in 1979, when he advised a co-worker – marine biologist Peter Best – about techniques for survey-based marine mammal abundance estimation. With Best's support, he became increasingly engaged in the research that Best was engaged in for the International Whaling Commission. The procedure originated in an informal competition undertaken by Butterworth and Andre Punt, a PhD student, against foreign research groups; in the course of the competition, Butterworth and Punt devised the procedure by using feedback control to refine computer simulations for whaling quotas. and it spread beyond South Africa: Butterworth has advised at least 12 other countries, as well as fishing industry associations and international bodies (among them the scientific committees of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). ' granting him the award in silver for, "His excellent contribution to the betterment of the environment and sustainability of fisheries." Having served on the Japanese delegation to the scientific committee of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, he received the award for his contribution to the sustainable management of Japan's marine resources, particularly southern bluefin tuna.