Ghillean Tolmie Prance was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1988 to 1999. Currently he is Scientific Director of the Eden Project in Cornwall, and Visiting Professor at Reading University. Born in Suffolk, England on 13th July 1937, he was educated at Malvern College, Worcestershire and Keble College, Oxford where he obtained a B.A. in Botany (1960) and a D.Phil. in 1963 for his "Taxonomic Study of Chrysobalanaceae".

He began his career with The New York Botanical Garden in 1963 as a research assistant, subsequently becoming B.A. Krukoff Curator of Amazonian Botany, Director and then Vice-President of Research, and finally Senior Vice President for Science in 1981. He also set up the Garden's Institute of Economic Botany of which he was the first Director from 1981-1988.

Sir Ghillean was trained as a plant taxonomist and has spent over eight years on field work and botanical exploration in Amazonian Brazil. He has a world-wide interest in the sustain-able development of rainforest ecosystems and conservation generally; as well as being the author of fourteen books and editor of a further eleven, he has published over 400 papers of both scientific and general interest on plant systematics, plant ecology, ethnobotany and conservation.

In addition to his various duties at The New York Botanical Garden, Sir Ghillean was the founder Director of graduate studies at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA) in Manaus, Brazil where he set up programmes in botany, ecology, entomology and ichthyology. He is an adjunct Professor of the City University at New York and a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading; from 1983-88, he was Visiting Professor in Tropical Studies at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies of Yale University. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and President 1997-2000, Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society, the Explorers Club and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been President of the Association of Tropical Biology (1979-80), the American Association of Plant Taxonomists (1984-85), the Systematics Association (1989-1991) and is President elect of the Institute of Biology.

Sir Ghillean holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Kent, Portsmouth, Kingston-upon-Thames, St Andrews, University of Bergen in Norway, Göteborg University in Sweden, Florida International University, Sheffield, Liverpool, Plymouth and Lehman College of City University, New York. He is a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of Brazil, Denmark and Sweden; his honours include the Diploma Honora ao Mérito from INPA, Brazil (1978), the Distinguished Service Award of the New York Botanical Garden (1986), the Henry Shaw Medal of the Missouri Botanical Garden (1988), the Linnean Medal for Botany (1990), the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1994), the International Award of Excellence of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (1998), Corresponding Member of the Botanical Society of America (1994) the Ordem Nacional do Mérito Cientifico:- Gră-Cruz (Brazil) 1995 and the Order of the Southern Cross from Brazil in 2000. In 1993, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded the International Cosmos Prize for his environmental work in Amazonia. He received the lifetime Discovery Award from the Royal Geographical Society and the Discovery Channel in 1999 and the Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration jointly with his wife Anne in 2000. He was knighted in July 1995, and received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1999.

Sir Ghillean is married and has two daughters; both are married and one is living in Recife, Brazil and the other is a surgeon.