Barry Gordon Lovegrove was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in December 1956. He is the second eldest of six brothers. His family emigrated to South Africa when Barry was 6 years old. The family settled in Cape Town where Barry attended the South African College School (SACS) primary and secondary schools in Newlands. He studied zoology at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and obtained his PhD specialising in animal energetics under the supervision of Gideon Louw in 1987.  

After a short spell of teaching at UCT, Barry undertook a post-doctorate program in the laboratory of Ken Nagy at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1988. There he also interacted with physiologists “Bart” Batholomew and John Lighton. In 1989 Barry undertook a post-doctoral program as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in the laboratory of Gerhard Heldmaier, Marburg, Germany.  

Barry returned to southern Africa in 1991 and spent nine months writing the Living Deserts of Southern Africa in Cape Town. In 1992 he secured his first and only permanent academic position at the former University of Natal, now the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He retired aged 60 in 2016 but retains Emeritus Professor status.  

Barry is an A-rated NRF scientist. He has published around 100 scientific papers and book chapters. He is also the author of Fires of Life: Endothermy in Birds and Mammals (Yale 2019). The Living Deserts of Southern Africa has also been revised (Penguin Random House, Struik Nature, 2021).