Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

Today is the anniversary of the death of Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan - a prominent English botanist and mycologist. She died in 1967.

Early on, Gwynn-Vaughan researched rust fungi. But she also helped form the University of London's Suffrage Society - where she was the first female professor. During #WWI, she also helped form the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Due to her extraordinary wartime leadership, Gwynne-Vaughan was one of the first women to receive a Military Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award.
The University of London recently released a lovely article about Gywnne-Vaughan called "Fungi and the Forces," which revealed that Gwynne-Vaughan was as accomplished in the armed forces as she was in the theater of fungi. In fact, a handful of fungi are named for her - like Palaeoendogone gwynne-vaughaniae and Pleurage gwynne-vaughaniae.