Alwyn Williams (geologist)

Sir Alwyn Williams ( born June 8, 1921 in Aberdare, Wales; † 4 April 2004) was a British geologist and paleontologist.

Williams was educated at University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, where he graduated in 1939 made ​​in geology and received his doctorate with a thesis on the Ordovician of Wales and there occurring brachiopods. After two years with a Harkness Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC at the Brachiopodenexperten G. Arthur Cooper, he was in 1950 Lecturer at the University of Glasgow and from 1954 at Queen's University Belfast, where he was also dean and 1967 Pro- Vice - Principal. In 1974 he, succeeding Fred Shotton Lapworth Professor of Geology at the University of Birmingham and Chairman of the geological faculty was. In 1976 he went to Glasgow, where he became principal of the university, which he remained until 1988. During this period he modernized the University of fundamental and led, among other things, a department of computer science. After his time as principal, he joined the newly founded Paleobiology Department of the University and explored with particular reference to soft tissues in fossils of brachiopods.

He was an expert on brachiopods, which he examined with his time, new techniques such as electron microscopy. After he had been tasked at the International Brachiopodenkongress 1990, he coordinated the revision of the brachiopod volumes of the Treatise on Invertebrate dedicated Paleontology, whose first volume appeared in 1997. In 2000 he was honored at the International Congress brachiopods in London for his 50 years of research in this field.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which he was president from 1985 to 1988. 2007, a building named after him at the University of Glasgow was opened, which extends the time in his sponsored particularly by Williams as principal computer science department. He was interested in art and 1979 to 1981 he was Chairman of the Committee on National Museums and Galleries in Scotland. A custom built in this committee report led to the establishment of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

He was married since 1949 with Joan Bevan, with whom he had a son and a daughter. In 1983 he was knighted. In 2002 he received the Lapworth Medal of the Palaeontological Association, whose honorary member he was.