Margaret Ann Bradshaw

Margaret Ann Bradshaw (née Cresswell; born 31 December 1941) is a New Zealand geologist and a retired staff member at the University of Canterbury. She is considered a trailblazer and influential female role model in Antarctic research.

Early life and education Born Margaret Ann Cresswell in Nottingham, England, on 31 December 1941, she married John Dudley Bradshaw in Nottingham in 1963, and they moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1966. Bradshaw began her work there on Devonian invertebrate palaeontology, gradually incorporating Antarctica into her research. She became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1980. Her first trip to Antarctica was from 1975 to 1976 to collect specimens for the museum's Antarctic Hall. and she was the first to discover new fish fossils in the exposures of the Cook Mountains in her 1988 to 1989 field season. She is a member of the Association of Australian Paleontologists.

Awards and honours Bradshaw is the second woman to win the Queen's Polar Medal, and the first New Zealand woman to be awarded this medal, in 1993. She received the Royal Society of New Zealand Science & Technology Medal in 1994. Bradshaw is a New Zealand Antarctic Society Life Member, nominated in 2006. In 2017, Bradshaw was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.

Bradshaw Peak, situated on the south west side of the McLay Glacier in Antarctica, is named in her honour.