Vale Professor Richard Scolyer AO, BMedSci, MBBS, MD, FRCPA, FRCPath, FAHMS (1966-2026) was a Senior Staff Specialist in Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney; a Faculty Member at Melanoma Institute Australia; and a Conjoint Professor at Sydney Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney.

Professor Scolyer provided a clinical consultation service for the diagnosis of difficult pigmented lesions and received more than 2,000 cases annually for expert opinion from Australasia and around the world. He successfully integrated his clinical practice with co-leading an internationally recognised translational melanoma research laboratory. His extraordinary academic record included more than 800 peer-reviewed publications, books and book chapters, including papers published in leading journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and Cancer Discovery. His work accumulated more than 63,500 citations and achieved an H-index of 120 (Google Scholar, August 2022). He also delivered more than 400 presentations at conferences worldwide.

In June 2021, Professor Scolyer was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to medicine, particularly in the fields of melanoma and skin cancer, and to national and international professional organisations. In January 2024, he and his colleague, Georgina Long, were jointly named Australians of the Year.

Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Scolyer received numerous prestigious honours. These included the NSW Premier's Award for Outstanding Cancer Researcher of the Year (2020), the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Distinguished Fellow Award (2020), The University of Sydney Alumni Award for International Achievement (2020), and recognition as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. He also received the NSW Premier's Award for Outstanding Cancer Research on multiple occasions (2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021), the Thomson Reuters Citation Award in Clinical Medicine (2015), the William O. Russell/Joanne Vandenberge Hill Award for Lifetime Achievement in Anatomical Pathology from MD Anderson Cancer Center (2018), Research Australia's GSK Award for Research Excellence (2018), the American Society of Dermatopathology's Elson B. Helwig Award (2019), the University of Tasmania Distinguished Alumni Award (2021), and The University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Research (2021). In 2023, he received the Founders' Award from The American Society of Dermatopathology, the Distinguished Pathologist Award from the International Academy of Pathology Australasian Division, and the Society for Melanoma Research Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor Scolyer was widely regarded as one of the world's foremost melanoma pathologists. According to Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge, he was the most published scientist globally in melanoma pathology and held the highest H-index in the field. The Fame Report (2011) ranked him as the sixth leading melanoma expert worldwide and the highest-ranked melanoma pathologist. In June 2022, Expertscape ranked him as the world's sixth leading melanoma expert across all disciplines and the world's leading melanoma pathologist. In September 2019, League of Scholars ranked him as Australia's leading pathologist across the entire field of pathology.

Professor Scolyer served as an expert member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Blue Books Editorial Board for the 5th Edition of the WHO Classification of Skin Tumours and was an editor of the 4th Edition of the WHO Classification of Tumours: Skin Tumours volume, for which he led three of the six major sections and authored or co-authored more than 30 chapters. He was also an invited contributing author to six additional WHO Classification of Tumours volumes, including those covering soft tissue and bone, digestive system, thoracic, female genital tract and paediatric tumours.

He served as Vice Chair of the Melanoma Expert Panel for the 8th and 9th editions of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Cancer Staging System, co-led the Australian Melanoma Genome Project as part of the International Cancer Genome Consortium, and was lead pathologist for The Cancer Genome Atlas Melanoma Project. He also chaired the Melanoma Expert Panel for the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting, contributed extensively to the Australian Melanoma Clinical Practice Guidelines, and co-led development of the College of American Pathologists Melanoma Reporting Protocol.

Professor Scolyer served as Editor-in-Chief of Pathology and was a member of the editorial boards of The American Journal of Surgical Pathology, Modern Pathology, Histopathology, and several other international journals. He was a Past President of the Australasian Division of the International Academy of Pathology and served as International Vice President representing Australasia on the International Academy of Pathology International Council. In 2019, he was the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Visiting Professor and Lecturer to Asia.

Together with colleagues at Melanoma Institute Australia, Professor Scolyer was Chief Investigator on three consecutive five-year NHMRC Program Grants (2006–2021), received multiple NHMRC and Cancer Institute NSW fellowships, contributed to numerous phase I, II and III clinical trials, and was a highly sought-after advisor to industry.