Fox, Marilyn Dale (née Jackson)   (1946–2002)

Born 28 August 1946 in Newcastle, NSW; died 20 October 2002 in Sydney, NSW.

She attended Cardiff Primary School and Hunter Girls High School.

Two years at Newcastle Teachers College (1964-5) prepared her for an outstanding teaching career that began at Smiths Hill Girls High School in Wollongong, NSW, and culminated with her time as Head of the School of Geography at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), more than 30 years later.

Marilyn married Barry Fox in August 1965 and both taught for three years in Wollongong (1966-8).

They both taught two terms of 1969 in Newcastle, before resigning from the NSW Department of Education to travel to Canada in August 1969.

There they taught at a high school in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, for 2 years.

Marilyn began her University career at the University of Windsor, with part-time and summer session study during the 2 years she taught in Windsor and completed her B.Sc. degree with one year of full time study.

They travelled around Europe in a VW Kombi Van for a year before returning with it to Canada for 3 months travelling in North America.

They returned home to Australia at the end of 1973 to undertake postgraduate training, and began at Macquarie University in 1974. Marilyn graduated in 1981 with her PhD, 'Coexistence Between Eucalypts in a Coastal Open Forest', that had been based in Myall Lakes National Park and had involved extensive fieldwork.

Marilyn was appointed to the National Herbarium of NSW, Sydney, Australia, as a plant ecologist at the beginning of 1979. Her main task was to produce vegetation maps for the south-western quarter of NSW.

In 1990 Marilyn took up a position as Lecturer in the School of Geography at UNSW, was promoted to Associate Professor in August 1994 and held the position of Head of School from 1994 to 1998.

She taught a range of under-graduate and postgraduate subjects that focused on Australia's environment and biogeography. She supervised a range of Honours, Masters and Doctoral candidates investigating the vegetation and wildlife of sites in eastern Australia.

Marilyn retired on medical grounds in April 2000, after having been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in February 2000. In October 2002 she could fight the disease no more and finally succumbed.

Source: Extracted from:
Obituary by Barry Fox (November 2004), Austral Ecology 29(5):483–488. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227584466_Marilyn_Dale_Fox_28_August_1946_-_20_October_2002
Portrait Photo: Obituary above.

Collecting localities for 'Fox, M.D.' from AVH (2025)

Data from 646 specimens