Presidents of the Royal Society

Portraits of six former Presidents of the Royal Society, whose collective presidential terms have spanned from 1990 to 2020. Featuring (clockwise from top left):

Robert May, President of the Royal Society from 2000-2005. Robert was is a theoretical ecologist, promoter of science and political influencer. Pioneering a mathematical approach to ecology, Robert established the field of theoretical ecology and developed influential and highly cited theories in population biology. He held several high-profile positions in the UK scientific and political establishments.

Venkatraman ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society from 2015-2020. Venki is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose many scientific contributions include his work on the atomic structure of the ribosome. As the site within living cells where the genetic information is read to synthesise proteins from amino acids, improved understanding of the ribosome has yielded many fundamental biological insights. recently, he has been using electron microscopy to visualise ribosomes in action in higher organisms. This work has advanced our understanding of how the ribosome works and how antibiotics inhibit it.

Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society from 2010-2015. Paul is a geneticist and cell biologist whose discoveries have helped to explain how the cell controls its cycle of growth and division. Working in fission yeast, he showed that the cdc2 gene encodes a protein kinase, which ensures the cell is ready to copy its DNA and divide. Paul’s findings have broader significance since errors in cell growth and division may lead to cancer and other serious diseases.

Aaron Klug, President of the Royal Society from 1995-2000. Aaron was a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and biophysicist who made outstanding contributions to molecular biology and, in particular, our knowledge of the structure of viruses. Aaron combined existing electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques to develop crystallographic electron microscopy — a method for constructing three-dimensional structures of biological molecules from two-dimensional images.

Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society from 2005-2010. Martin is the UK’s Astronomer Royal. He is based at Cambridge University where he is a Fellow (and Former Master) of Trinity College. He is a member of the House of Lords, and a former President of the Royal Society. His research interests include space exploration, black holes, galaxy formation, the multiverse and prospects for extraterrestrial life.

Michael Atiyah, President of the royal Society from 1990-1995. Michael was a mathematician who made outstanding contributions to geometry and topology and was President of the Royal Society from 1990 until 1995. He was best known for his co-development of topological K-theory and the Atiyah–Singer index theorem. As well as advancing pure mathematics, Michael’s work has been fruitfully applied and extended to both pillars of theoretical physics — quantum theory and general relativity.