Cowan, Roberta Ann (née Tobias)   (1954 - )
aka Townsend, Roberta Ann

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, 21 September 1954;

Roberta obtained a BSc (Hons) from Melbourne University in 1976, then a PhD from the University of Sydney on the Sporolithaceae (coralline marine algae).

In 1980 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

She later gained a Graduate Diploma in Information and Library Studies at Curtin University and a Certificate of Information Technology at Canning College, Perth.

During the late 1970s and onwards she studied marine algae and published under the name Roberta Ann Townsend. She was still publishing algal papers under the name 'Townsend, R.A.' in 2004.

On August 23, 1986, she married Richard Sumner Cowan (1921-1997), a botanist/taxonomist from the USA who retired to Australia in 1985, and continued research work, concentrating on Acacia. They lived in Perth.

From August 1986, Roberta collected mostly flowering plants, especially Acacia, under the name 'Cowan, R.A.', usually as joint collector with Richard Cowan.

Richard had a stroke in 1997, from which he briefly recovered, but after a fall, he died from the effects of brain trauma on November 17, 1997.

At the time of her selection for a one-year term as ABLO in 2002, Roberta was a post-doctoral fellow at Murdoch University.
She flew from Perth via South Africa to the UK with her partner, Alex George to take up the ABLO position on 20 November, 2002. On arrival in Kew she had a very short overlap with the previous ABLO, Peter Bostock.

On returning to Perth after her term as ABLO, Roberta continued in employment in archives management and bibliograph research for several organisations.

She had began work on AMANI (Australian Marine Algal Name Index) in 1994. In 2013 she said: "I am presently editing the algal data relevant to the nomenclature of all names cited in Australian taxonomic literature and all taxonomic literature citing Australian algal names for the Atlas of Living Australia. BHL [Biodiversity Heritage Library] is one of my most important tools."

In retirement she is a Research Associate at the Western Australian Herbarium, working on coralline algae, including contributions to the Algae of Australia and the Handbook of Australasian Biogeograplhy (ed. M.C.Ebach).
She contributes to the Australian National Species List.

Source: Extracted from:
George, Alex (Ed), The Australian Botanical Liaison Officer scheme at Kew, 1937-2009, Four Gables Press, Perth, 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sumner_Cowan
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0417-2208
https://peoplepill.com/i/roberta-ann-townsend
https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2013/12/basionyms-synonyms-authorities-tracking-the-names-of-macro-and-micro-algae-through-time.html
Portrait Photo: 2005, extracted from larger photo by Jeremy Bruhl.

Collecting localities for 'Cowan, R.A.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 165 specimens (specimens collected as 'Townsend, R.A.' are not included)