Professor Richard Scolyer was the leading world expert who inspired many and transformed melanoma and skin cancer research and diagnosis across the world. He gave outstanding service in a wide range of roles, including pathology, melanoma diagnosis and treatment, scholarship, education and mentorship, amongst others. He delivered hundreds of lectures to conferences, medical students and pathology trainees and published over 1000 peer-reviewed journal articles.

His many career highlights included:

 - Author and Editor for the 4th and 5th World Health Organization (WHO) Classifications of Tumours Skin Tumours  volumes
 - Vice-chair of the Melanoma Expert Panel for the 8th Edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC)  Cancer Staging System
 - President of the International Academy of Pathology (IAP), Australasian Branch

Professor Scolyer was a passionate and generous supporter of the work of the ICCR. He Chaired the 1st and 2nd editions of the ICCR Invasive melanoma dataset and was an author on the 3rd edition published in January 2026. He was also an author of the 1st edition of the ICCR Merkel cell carcinoma dataset and the upcoming 1st edition of the ICCR Invasive melanoma in the setting of neoadjuvant therapy dataset.

In 2024 he was awarded joint Australian of the Year for his pioneering work in melanoma after being diagnosed with glioblastoma in June 2023. He sadly passed away at the age of 59 in June 2026.

Professor Scolyer has been described as extraordinary, generous, talented, positive, driven, selfless and humble. His passing is a tremendous loss to pathology worldwide and to everyone that had the privilege to know him. The ICCR extends our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.