P u b l i s h i n g
Reproduction,
Fertility and
Development
Volume 13, 2001
© CSIRO 2001
A journal for the publication of original work, review and comment in the field of
reproductive biology, reproductive endocrinology and developmental biology,
including puberty, lactation and fetal physiology when they fall within these fields
All enquiries and manuscripts should be directed to:
Reproduction, Fertility and Development
CSIRO Publishing
PO Box 1139 (150 Oxford St)
Collingwood, Vic. 3066, Australia
Telephone: +61 3 9662 7629
Fax: +61 3 9662 7611
Email: rfd@publish.csiro.au
Published by CSIRO Publishing
for CSIRO and the Australian Academy of Science
w w w. p u b l i s h . c s i ro . a u / j o u r n a l s / r f d
Professor Roger Valentine Short
FRS, FAA, FRS(Ed.), FRCVS, FRCOG, FRCP(Ed.), FRANZCOG, FAAS, BVSc, MS, PhD, ScD
A Biography
Roger Short was born on 31st July 1930 in Weybridge,
Surrey. His father, a mechanical engineer, was managing
director of an instrument manufacturing company and his
mother was heavily involved in amateur dramatics. Roger
attended Sherborne School in Dorset from 1944 to 1948, the
University of Bristol School of Veterinary Medicine during
1949 to 1954 from which he graduated with a BVSc, the
University of Wisconsin Department of Genetics in
1954–55, from which he graduated with a MS in genetics,
and the University of Cambridge Department of Veterinary
Clinical Studies during 1956 to 1972, from which he
graduated with a PhD in 1958 under the supervision of
Professor T. R. R. Mann FRS and a ScD in 1969. He was a
member of the famous Agricultural Research Council Unit
of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry at The
Animal Research Station in Cambridge from 1956 to 1972
and was appointed Lecturer and subsequently Reader in
Animal Health in the Department of Veterinary Clinical
Studies, Cambridge during 1962 to 1972. He was also a
Fellow and College Lecturer in Magdalene College, Cambridge during the same period.
In 1972, Roger moved to Edinburgh to found the Medical
Research Council Unit of Reproductive Biology, which he
directed until 1982. During this period he was also an
Honorary Professor in Edinburgh University. In 1982 he
surprised the scientific world when he resigned his directorship of the now very active and successful Reproductive
Biology Unit and moved to Australia to take up a Personal
Chair of Reproductive Biology at Monash University in
Melbourne. He held this with distinction until his compulsory retirement in December 1995 because of age, but the
very next day he moved to the University of Melbourne as
Wexler Professorial Fellow in the Department of Obstetrics
and Gynaecology. He remains active in that position to the
present day.
Roger has rightly had all manner of academic honours and
awards bestowed upon him throughout his long and distinguished career. To name but a few, he was awarded the
Scientific Medal of both the Zoological Society of London
and the Society for Endocrinology in 1969, and was elected
to Fellowships of both the Royal Society and the Royal
Society of Edinburgh in 1974, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1976, the Australian Academy of Science in
1984, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
in 1994, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
1997, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1998,
and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of
Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1998. He was awarded
© CSIRO 2001
Honorary DScs by the University of Guelph in 1995, the
University of Bristol in 1998 and the University of Edinburgh in 2002. He has given countless invited and guest
lectures over the years, starting with the prestigious Laurentian Hormone Conference in Canada as long ago as 1963; the
Inaugural Lecture to the 4th Asia and Oceania Congress of
Endocrinology in Auckland in 1971; the Opening Address of
the 4th International Symposium on Comparative Biology of
Reproduction in Canberra in 1976; the Sir William Weipers
Commemorative Lecture in the University of Glasgow in
1977; the 500th Anniversary Celebration of the University of
Uppsala, Sweden in 1977; the Graham Hawks lecture at
Cornell University Medical School and the William Harvey
400th Anniversary Celebration at the Royal College of
Physicians in London in 1978; the Guest Lecture to the Royal
Society of Arts in London, the Gregory Pincus Memorial
Lecture at the Laurentian Hormone Conference in Canada,
the Tyler Memorial Lecture at the Downstate Medical Center
in New York, and the Boyd Orr Lecture of The Nutrition
Society in London, all in 1979; the Bertram Louis Abraham
Lecture to the Royal College of Physicians in 1980; the
Transatlantic Lecture of the American Endocrine Society in
1981; the Huang Chan Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong in
1982; the Amoroso Memorial Lecture to the Society for
Study of Fertility in 1984; the Inaugural Lecture to the
International Symposium on Fertility Regulation Research in
Beijing in 1985; and the Galton Lecture of the Eugenics
Society in London in 1986. He was awarded the Marshall
Medal of the Society for the Study of Fertility in 1996 and
the Steptoe Medal of the British Fertility Society in 1997. He
gave the President’s Lecture to the American Society for the
Study of Reproduction in 2000, and organized the Royal
Society’s Millennial Discussion Meeting on the Measurement of Time in 2000.
During his career, Roger has been a member and/or
officer of many prestigious advisory groups, boards and
scientific committees across a wide spectrum of biological
science. For example, the Medical Research Council Cell
Board, the World Health Organization Human Reproduction
Programme, the Wellcome Trust Veterinary Panel, the Ford
Foundation Committee for Reproductive Research, and the
WHO Global Programme on AIDS. He was Chairman of
Family Health International in North Carolina from 1983 to
1990, on the Population Panel of the Wellcome Trust from
1995 to 2000, and is currently on the Board of the Concept
Foundation in Bangkok. In addition, he has been a Council
Member of the Zoological Societies of London and
Scotland, Howletts Zoo (Kent, UK), the International
10.1071/RDv13n8_BIO
1031-3613/01/070vii
viii
Society for Endocrinology, the Australian Societies of
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology and the Australian
Academy of Science. He has also been Chairman of Council
for both the Society of Endocrinology and Society for the
Study of Fertility in the United Kingdom.
Roger has supervised 22 PhD and 1 MD theses during his
career, on subjects in reproductive biology as diverse as
‘The reproductive physiology of the African elephant’,
‘Chromosomes and spermatozoa of the great apes and man’
and ‘The effect of melatonin on female rat circadian
rhythms’. He has been awarded 5 personal patents for his
ground-breaking work on the effects of melatonin on jetlag
and he is author or co-author on more than 350 scientific
papers and book chapters of which no fewer than 20 have
been published in Nature. He co-authored with Professor
Bunny Austin the best-selling teaching series entitled
‘Reproduction in Mammals’, which ran to eight books when
first published in the early 1970s and a further five books
when the Second Edition was produced in the mid 1980s. It
is probably true to say that the beautifully written contents of
these small volumes have taught more reproductive physiology to more undergraduates and have stimulated more
graduate students to pursue their studies in the field of
reproduction than any other volume ever written anywhere
in the world.
W. R. Allen
http://www.publish.csiro.au/journals/rfd