Category Archives: Obituary

On 17th March, more than 100 colleagues, friends and members of the academic community gathered  to celebrate the life and work of Dr Paul Ayris, and to mark the launch of his open access book, Thomas Cranmer’s Register, which was the result of more than 40 years of extraordinary academic endeavour.

Speakers reflected on Paul’s significant contributions to UCL and to the wider scholarly community:

• Professor Jennifer Hudson, Vice-Provost (Faculties) reflected on her work with Paul during the past two years, and his leadership of LCCOS (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science) at UCL
• Professor Emeritus David Price, former Vice-Provost (Research) at UCL, who shared warm recollections of working closely with Paul and spoke about their long-standing friendship.
• Professor Richard Rex, Professor of Reformation History at the University of Cambridge, who placed Paul’s pioneering research on Thomas Cranmer’s Register in its wider scholarly context and reflected on their academic collaboration.
• Dr Michael Spence, President and Provost of UCL, who led the audience in a moment of remembrance.

Paul was founder, CEO and a champion of UCL Press, and dedicated most of his career to UCL. He joined in 1997 as Deputy Librarian and later became Director of UCL Library Services, where he strengthened the university’s commitment to openness and public engagement. In 2018, he was appointed Pro-Vice-Provost of LCCOS (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science) with an expanded portfolio, and his leadership in Open Science helped shape practice across the sector. His influence played a key role in establishing UCL Press as a global leader in open access publishing.

Paul also volunteered his time to a range of organisations across the sector in service of his vision of an open, accessible and publicly engaged higher education ecosystem, including as President of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, and as Chair of League of European Research Universities’ Working Groups on Roadmaps for Open Access, Research Data and Open Science. He was latterly proud to serve as Chair of the LERU Group for Open Science Ambassadors.

Paul’s impact is felt across UCL, within the international library and scholarly communications communities, and among all who had the privilege of working with him. 

Find out more about Paul Ayris’ life and work: https://uclpress.co.uk/in-memoriam-dr-paul-ayris-ba-phd-frhist/

Read and download Thomas Cranmer’s Register: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/thomas-cranmers-register/

With great sadness, we announce the death of Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost (LCCOS: Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science) and CEO of UCL Press.

Paul dedicated the majority of his career to UCL, joining in 1997 as Deputy Librarian and quickly becoming Director of UCL Library Services. Under his leadership, Library Services went from strength to strength, developing the focus on openness and outreach that was his hallmark and implementing a major programme of investment in services that went on to include the creation of the UCL Student Centre in Bloomsbury and the UCL East Library. In 2018 he became Pro-Vice-Provost with an expanded portfolio, and his championing of Open Science in particular has been instrumental in changing approaches across the sector. It is in large part thanks to him that UCL Press is leading the way in open access publishing.

Paul was not only CEO and a champion of UCL Press, but also an author of one of its forthcoming publications. He was dedicated to the study of the English reformation church, having written his doctoral thesis on the work of the reformation archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and was looking forward to the publication of his book, Thomas Cranmer’s Register, in January.

He pursued his academic work in parallel to his role at UCL, the high standard of which was reflected in his election as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2019.

Paul also volunteered his time to a range of organisations across the sector in service of his vision of an open, accessible and publicly engaged higher education ecosystem, including as President of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, and as Chair of League of European Research Universities’ Working Groups on Roadmaps for Open Access, Research Data and Open Science. He was latterly proud to serve as Chair of the LERU Group for Open Science Ambassadors.

He led a huge portfolio bringing together UCL’s libraries, museums and collections, public engagement and open science activities with great energy and enthusiasm and will be enormously missed by colleagues at UCL and globally.

UCL Press is saddened by the recent death of Professor Marcelle BouDagher-Fadel, whose landmark books Biostratigraphic and Geological Significance of Planktonic Foraminifera and Evolution and Geological Significance of Larger Benthic Foraminifera were published by UCL Press.

Marcelle was a Professorial Research Associate at UCL, where she spent her academic life for over 40 years. She was an internationally recognised expert on foraminifera, microscopic marine organisms that are vital to today’s marine ecosystems.

Marcelle BouDagher-Fadel was a Professorial Research Associate at UCL, where she spent her academic life for over 40 years. She was an internationally recognised expert on foraminifera, microscopic marine organisms that are vital to today’s marine ecosystems. In the fossil record they play a vital role in enabling the reconstruction of past environments and stratigraphic dating.

Marcelle’s virtually unique microscope skills enabled her to identify, at the species level, fossil foraminifera in thin rock sections dating from the Holocene to the Carboniferous. This truly remarkable capability made her a highly sought-after collaborator, and she worked with many research teams from around the world. She authored over 200 scientific outputs, perhaps the most noteworthy being her two open access, definitive monographs on Larger Benthic Foraminifera and on Planktonic Foraminifera, published by UCL Press, which together have currently been downloaded over 67,000 times in more than 150 countries across the world.

Her work was wide-ranging and, for example, provided constraints on the timing of the Himalayan orogeny, the effect of the opening of the Atlantic on the distribution and migration of marine genera, the archaeology of Phoenician ports, and the effect of the opening of the Suez Canal on the Eastern Mediterranean fauna.

Marcelle studied for her first degree in Lebanon and came to the UK in 1980. She studied at UCL for her MSc and graduated from UCL with a PhD in 1986. She then worked for a year as Curator of the Micropalaeontology Collection in the then UCL Department of Geology, before taking a family career break.

In 1993 she was awarded a Royal Society Daphne Jackson Fellowship, which she held at UCL and that allowed her to return to research in a part-time capacity. From 1996 to 2005 she worked in UCL as a post-doctoral research fellow with Professors Alan Lord and Fred Banner. In 2005 she was employed as an Editorial Assistant for Elsevier’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters, working with the then Editor, Professor David Price in the UCL Department of Earth Sciences. In 2007 she was appointed as a Senior Research Associate working again with Professor Price in his then Office of the UCL Vice-Provost (Research). Her personally led research activity blossomed, working with industry and collaborators from around the world. She was promoted to Principal Research Associate in 2009, and then to Professorial Research Associate in 2016.

She will be fondly remembered by the UCL Press team for the warmth, kindness and drive towards making her work as accessible as possible to as many as possible. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and collaborators. She will be sorely missed.