Biosphere 12(8)
10 March 2014
Biology Colloquium: Friday, 14 March 2014, 2:00 pm in CR 5125
“Changes in Pre-service Teachers’ Attitudes
Across Successive Service Learning Experiences”
Ana Garcia-Nevarez, Ph.D.
CSU Sacramento
New Publication
Dr. Dave Gray is a coauthor of, “A
modified mole cricket lure and
description of Scapteriscus borellii
range expansion and calling song in
California.” The paper just appeared in
Environmental Entomology.
Women in Marine Biology1
—Mia Adreani, Amy Briggs, Beth Lenz
Isabella “Izzie” Abbott (1919–2010).
Known as the “First Lady of Limu,” Izzie
Abbott was a trailblazing taxonomist of
seaweeds of the Central Pacific and
California. Her interest in limu (Hawaiian
for seaweed) began as a child in
Ka’alawai Beach in O’ahu. Her mother
seeded her passion by taking her and
her brother to pick seaweed used in
Hawaiian meals. In 1950, Abbott
received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley,
1 To commemorate Women’s History Month, each
issue of Biosphere in March is featuring profiles of
female pioneers in biology.
Photo: Mark Arbeit becoming the first native Hawaiian
woman to earn a Ph.D. in science. That
same year, she and her husband
Donald Abbott (an invertebrate
zoologist) moved to Pacific Grove so
that he could serve as professor at
Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station. After
being a part of the community at
Hopkins for more than two decades,
Biosphere 12(8)
she was hired in 1972, becoming
Stanford’s first female biology professor.
When she became emeritus in 1982,
she returned to Hawai’i where she
devoted her remaining years to the local
community, phycology, and teaching
courses at the University of Hawai’i at
Manoa. Abbott’s work was dedicated to
Pacific algal taxonomy and ethnobotany
in the Hawaiian culture. She authored
more than 150 publications, technical
papers, many recipes, and eight books
(including Marine Algae of California,
which is used in CSUN’s Phycology
course). She discovered and identified
more than 200 algal species. Likewise,
many species have been named after
her including the genus Abbottella,
meaning little Abbott.
Eugenie Clark (1922– ). Eugenie Clark
studied (among other topics) shark
behavior, taxonomy, and ecology. She
went to Hunter College, then to NYU for
a Master’s, and to Scripps for a Ph.D.
She and the only other female graduate
student at Scripps were not allowed to
go on overnight field expeditions, but
after she received her Ph.D., Clark
traveled around Micronesia on Navy
ships to study reef-fish communities
across the Pacific. Despite the setbacks
that Clark faced because of her gender
and Japanese decent, she established
herself as one of the first people to
study sharks in the wild, and she was
also a pioneer in the use of SCUBA and
submersibles for research. Over the
course of her career, she participated in
more than 35 research expeditions
around the world, and continued
conducting field research into her late
80s. She was also the founder and
director of the Cape Haze Marine Lab, a
10 March 2014
leading shark research facility that has
grown into seven separate research
centers focused on marine science,
conservation, and training for young
scientists. Clark authored more than
170 scientific publications, many articles
in National Geographic and other
popular magazines, and several books,
one of which, Lady with a Spear, was
an international best seller. She also
received an Emmy Award for her
underwater films. Clark received awards
from many US and international
organizations like the American Littoral
Society, the American Society of
Oceanographers, and the Underwater
Society of America, and has had
several fish species named after her.
Sylvia Earle (1935– ). Sylvia Earle has
been an ocean advocate since her
college days at Florida State University,
Biosphere 12(8)
10 March 2014
conservation biologist. In her late 70s,
she still dives and helps engineer new
underwater-exploration gear. Her
enthusiasm for the ocean is infectious
and her public lectures have garnered
much support from local communities
across the globe.
Alumni News
“I want to get out in the water. I want to see
fish, real fish, not fish in a laboratory.”
where she learned to dive and explored
the Gulf Coast. She then went on to
study algal communities at Duke
University, earning a Master’s, then a
Ph.D. She later became a research
fellow at Harvard and director of the
Cape Haze Marine Lab. In the late
1960s, Earle began testing submersible
technologies and became the lead
scientist on a crew of all-female
aquanauts, living in an enclosed habitat
underwater for two weeks in Saint John
(the same study site where Biology’s
Peter Edmunds has conducted research
for the last 28 years). Her integration of
innovative engineering and marine
biology garnered much public
recognition for ocean conservation. In
the 1980s she partnered with engineers
to create undersea vehicles that could
explore the ocean floor. In the 1990s,
Earle served as Chief Scientist of the
National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration. She also
founded a non-profit organization called
Mission Blue, which serves to identify
and protect vital marine habitat and
organisms. Earle remains a high-profile
researcher, lecturer, and avid
Former biology student Tamara
Johnson (B.S. ‘07) earned her Ph.D.
from Johns Hopkins and is now a
postdoc at Scripps in San Diego.
eText Showoffs
The eTexts of Drs. Paul Wilson and
Paula Schiffman were the talk of the
town at a university-wide event for
faculty who will be creating books for
their classes in the coming year.
Student Wins Scholarship
Barbara Weiser (Steele Lab) has
been awarded the Dr. Bob Luszczak,
DDS Biology Graduate Scholarship.
Visiting Scientists from Argentina
Drs. Lorena Quiroga and Eduardo
Sanabria of the Universidad Nacional
de San Juan will be working in Dr.
Espinoza’s lab for the next three
months. Their visit is supported by a
John Perkins, Jr. Memorial Award for
International Physiologists from the
American Physiological Society.
Biosphere: The Weekly Bulletin of Biology
Department of Biology
California State University, Northridge
Editors: Paul Wilson and Robert Espinoza
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