Margaret E. McCully

Margaret Elizabeth McCully (born ca. 1934? in St. Marys, Ontario) is a Canadian botanist and cell biologist, known as one of the world's leading experts on plant root structure. In 1996 the Canadian Botanical Association awarded her the George Lawson Medal (Category B) for lifetime contribution to botany. In 2015 she received the inaugural ISRR Lifetime Award from the International Society of Root Research.

Biography
Margaret E. McCully graduated in 1956 with a B.Sc. in agriculture from the University of Toronto. After two years of teaching chemistry and biology at Ontario's Shelburne High School, she became a graduate student at the University of Toronto, where she graduated with an M.Sc. in plant ecology. Her master's thesis deals with the morphology and ecology of the aquatic plant Hippuris vulgaris. After two years of teaching biology in a school in England, she matriculated at Harvard University, where she graduated in 1996 with a Ph.D. in cell biology. Her doctoral dissertation involves histological studies of the intertidal seaweed Fucus, a genus of brown algae.

At Carleton University, McCully joined the faculty in 1966 as an assistant professor, was appointed a full professor in 1977, and retired there in 1999 as professor emerita of biology. For a number of years, she was the director of the University of Carleton's Cryo-analytical Microscopy Facility.

She was married to the plant physiologist Martin Canny (1931–2013), who was appointed in 1986 an Honorary Research Professor at Carleton University. He had been previously married. In the late 1990s, Martin Canny and Margaret McCully moved from Ottawa to Canberra, where he was appointed Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University's Research School of Biology. The married couple collaborated for over a quarter of century. In Canberra, McCully continued doing research at the Division of Plant Industry of CSIRO, while mentoring students at Australia National University, at Charles Sturt University, and at CSIRO.

During her career, she has held visiting positions in England at the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford, in the US at the University of California at Davis, and in Australia at Monash University, the University of Melbourne, LaTrobe University, Australian National University, and the University of Western Australia. In 1994 she gave the Hamm Lecture at the University of Minnesota.

McCully has done outstanding research on plant root structure and the effects on plant function caused by interactions among roots, soils, and bacteria. She pioneered the use of modern optical and electron microscopy to study root development and its relation to soil bacteria and soil structure. Her research topics include biology of the rhizosphere, water status of plants, and ion uptake.

She is the co-author of two books and the author or co-author of more than 160 scientific articles. Many of her former students became academically successful in research positions.

In 1987 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1993 Calgary's St. Mary's University honoured her with a D.Sc. (honoris cause). In 1999 in St. Louis, the XVI International Botanical Congress honoured her and her research.