Professor Patrick Wyse Jackson

Patrick Wyse Jackson is a Professor in Geology and Curator of the Geological Museum. His is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Between 2017 and 2022 he served as Head of the School of Natural Sciences, and is a former Head of the Discipline/Department of Geology. Director of Post-Graduate Teaching and Learning in the School of Natural Sciences, and College Tutor. His main research interests are on the taxonomy, functional morphology and biology of Palaeozoic bryozoans, particularly those from the Ordovician and Mississippian geological time periods. With a number of international colleagues, he is currently working on aspects of some fossil bryozoan faunas, and on the revision of the Order Fenestrata for the forthcoming edition of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology to be published by the University of Kansas. Patrick holds several degrees from Trinity including a PhD and ScD. He has published over one hundred research papers and international conference abstracts on his research on bryozoans for which he was awarded his ScD in 2017. He has also published over 200 research papers, and books in other fields including the history and philosophy of geology, general palaeontology, and the use of building materials in Ireland. His research output has informed local and national government policy on landscape protection and on heritage issues. He was a co-PI on the innovative cross-disciplinary project 'Making Victorian Dublin' being carried out with colleagues in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture in Trinity. This project is focussed on the extractive industries and building trades, and craftsmen who worked on the Museum Building and elsewhere, in the middle decades of the 1800s. His current project STONEBUILT Ireland examines the use of dimension and decorative stone in Ireland through many building phases. His books include 'The Chronologers' Quest: episodes in the search for the age of the Earth' (Cambridge, 2006) and 'Introducing Palaeontology: a guide to ancient life' (Dunedin Academic Press, 2010; 2nd edition 2019). He has served the administration of several Irish and international organisations in various capacities, and has organised several conferences and two international symposia in Trinity. He is a past-President of the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, the Irish Geological Association, and the International Bryozoology Association, and a past-Chairman of the Geological Curators'' Group. He edited the international journals 'The Geological Curator' for thirteen years and 'Earth Sciences History' - the journal of the History of Earth Sciences Society for three and is a current co-editor of the Irish Journal of Earth Sciences. He is a member of the International Commission for the History of Geological Sciences, a Voting Member of the International Union of Geological Sciences Heritage Stone Subcommission, and a past-Chair of the Royal Irish Academy Committee for the History of Irish Science.

  Bryozoans   Building Stone   Building Stones   Carboniferous, Devonian and Ordovician geology of Ireland   Earth Science   Fossil and Living Bryozoans   Fossils   Geological Museums   Geology   Geology for the General Public   History of Geology   History of Science   Palaeontology   Paleontology, Paleoecology   Plate Tectonics