Giants in History: Gloria Lim (1930-11 July 2022) is a retired mycologist from Singapore who studied tropical fungi. One of the first students to attend University of Malaya when it was founded in 1949, she graduated as one of the two Botany Honours students from the inaugural class.
Lim went on to become the first female Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Singapore, now the National University of Singapore. Over the course of her career, Lim published 140 research papers, wrote several books on fungi and consulted for private companies and public sectors. She served on the scientific advisory board of MycoBiotech, a company that produces medicinal mushrooms and helped the Ministry of Defence solve the problem of mould growth in their underground storage bunkers. Lim also set up a repository of little-known fungi collected from the region. Her work brought attention to the often neglected field of mycology.
Profile photo: Courtesy of National University of Singapore
