Catherine Duigan
Honorary Professor in Environmental Science at Aberystwyth University
Catherine is a graduate of University College Dublin who has lived on the Celtic fringe – Ireland, Scotland and Wales – working in the fields of environmental management and conservation for three decades.
She did her Ph.D. on zooplankton in Irish lakes and has mapped aquatic plant distribution in freshwater lochs on the Isle of Skye. At Aberystwyth University, she studied environmental change in the High Atlas Mountain lakes, Morocco. In 1992, Catherine joined the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) as their freshwater ecologist and later became a member of the senior management team in CCW, and its successor organization Natural Resources Wales. She has developed corporate strategy and led groups of technical specialists covering marine, terrestrial and freshwater environments. She was recently on secondment to the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee where she worked on a range of current conservation issues, was a member of the Science Management Board and co-founded a new team focused on nature conservation policy and advice.
Catherine's scientific publications include papers on Welsh protected areas, the current UK lake classification and a multi-authored book on the rivers of Wales. During her career she has developed an understanding of working on the science-policy interface, and has provided advice to government and the Natural Environment Research Council. She is an honorary Professor in Environmental Science at Aberystwyth University and she has contributed to teaching at Bangor University.
Catherine has a keen interest in heritage issues, and she is a trustee of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, where she also serves on the Research Advisory Committee. Over the past few years she has been researching the life of Dr. Kathleen Carpenter, a pioneering freshwater ecologist at Aberystwyth University in the early 1900’s. Catherine is an elected Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Biology.
