Mahala Andrews

Mahala Andrews (9 February 1939 – 27 October 1997) was a British vertebrae palaeontologist who worked for the National Museum of Scotland.

Early years and education

Andrews was born Sheila Mahala Andrews on 9 February 1939 in Beckenham, London. She was the only child of crafts teacher, Mahala Humphrey, and GPO overseer, Alfred J. R. Andrews. Andrews moved to Sydenham, London with her mother after her father died in 1941. She graduated from Girton College, Cambridge in 1960 with a BSc in zoology.

Later years and career

After graduating from Cambridge, she worked for seven years as a research assistant to geology professor Thomas Stanley Westoll at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Andrews then returned to Girton College at Cambridge to complete her PhD thesis on fossil lobe-finned fish and also co-authored a paper on the subject in 1970. She was appointed as the Senior Scientific Officer in the Department of Geology at the Royal Scottish Museum (now the National Museum of Scotland) in Edinburgh in 1968 and became a Principal Scientific Officer in 1973. Andrews also made drawings of many of the fossils which she studied and travelled extensively including joining the first official palaeontology party to work in China in 1979.