My mother, Jacqueline Shane, who has died aged 69, was a wildlife activist, an ecologist, a former computer scientist and a CND campaigner.
She was born in London, to activist parents, Manny and Yvonne Schreiber, who when Jacqui was a few months old anglicised their surname. After attending several primary schools, mostly in London, she accepted an LEA scholarship to South Hampstead high school for girls. She also learned ballet, at the choreographer Nesta Brooking's dance school in Primrose Hill; and was a youth organiser for CND, which involved fixing overnight accommodation for young marchers on the Aldermaston protests of the 1950s and 60s.
Jacqui went to Edinburgh University to study mathematics but, finding the Scottish winter too cold, transferred to Sir John Cass college in London. She followed her uncle Sidney Michaelson into the then rather new field of computer science and obtained a post at the London University Institute of Computer Science.
When that closed in the early 70s, she transferred to Imperial College, where in 1975 she worked on a project known as the Science Museum Terminal, an early form of interactive computer display. This included a London Underground program to show how people in the future would be able to use computers to plan their travel.
My mother's life was plagued by ill-health, mainly nephritis, which resulted in end-stage renal failure in her early 30s. She became a patient at St Mary's hospital, Paddington, where despite the constraints of having dialysis twice a week she was determined to lead as normal a life as possible, and surprised her doctors by having a baby, a first for the St Mary's dialysis unit. In 1979, Jacqui received a kidney transplant. However, the high doses of immunosuppressants took their toll. In 1982, no longer able to manage a full-time job, she took early retirement from Imperial College.
In the 1980s, her interest in gardening led to her becoming deeply involved with wildlife and natural history. She helped to set up the West London Bat Group, and was actively involved with the London Wildlife Trust. She supported numerous planning objections, most notably to Heathrow Terminal 5, where she rediscovered a rare plant, the water avens, on one of the threatened sites. In later years, most of her involvement in conservation was with Richmond Park, particularly in the flora group, and she wrote the flora chapter in the Guide to Richmond Park (2011).
She is survived by me and her grandson.