Jane Soons

Soons was born on 18 June 1931, and grew up in a council cottage in the small English village of Great Gonerby. Her father, Lewin Soons, worked for the railways. He was a good trade unionist and loved reading books. Her mother, Jenny, was a hard worker. After Lewin became bedridden with tuberculosis, Jenny took over tending their large vegetable garden and orchard that provided a little income. At age eleven, Soons won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and started in the third form the year that Margaret Thatcher was a prefect at the school. Subsequently, in 1958, she became one of the first woman PhD graduates in geography at the University of Glasgow. After tutoring at two British universities, she became fed-up with being overlooked for higher academic positions, due to what she described as "an inbred feeling that this was not a women’s world". She is remembered by her students and colleagues for her kindness, praise and genuine support of their work, as well as her enthusiastic lectures and mentoring of young geomorphologists and future generations of female scientists. Other highlights of her distinguished careers include being president of the International Union of Quaternary Research and convenor of the National Committee for Quaternary Research for the Royal Society. == Recognition ==