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October 14, 2002
Discover magazine names three UCSC professors
among the top 50 women in science
By Tim Stephens
The popular science magazine Discover has named three women
on the faculty of UCSC among the "top 50 women scientists in the
country" in an article in the magazine's November issue.
The issue, which hits newsstands on October 15, features a series
of articles about how women fare in science and celebrates the accomplishments
of women scientists.
The three UCSC scientists featured in the magazine are Sandra Faber,
University Professor of astronomy and astrophysics; Terrie Williams,
professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the Ida Benson Lynn
Professor of Ocean Health; and Marcia McNutt, professor of Earth sciences
at UCSC and the president and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute. (McNutt is identified in the magazine by her primary affiliation
with MBARI.)
"I'm impressed that three women scientists from UCSC are represented
on this list, and I think it reflects the fact that UCSC's science faculty
is absolutely first class," Faber said.
Faber is renowned for her research on the formation and evolution of
galaxies and the evolution of structure in the universe. Important concepts
such as "cold dark matter" and the "Great Attractor"
are direct results of work by Faber and her colleagues.
Two of the major optical astronomy ventures of recent years have benefited
from Faber's involvement: the Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck
Observatory in Hawaii.
One of her major projects in recent years has been leading the team
that designed and built the DEIMOS spectrograph, a powerful new instrument
installed this year on the Keck II Telescope.
Faber is a core member of the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe
(DEEP) project, a large-scale survey of distant, faint galaxies using
the Keck Telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope. She is also involved
in research on adaptive optics as a senior member of the Center for
Adaptive Optics at UCSC.
Faber's many honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical
Society. In 1995, she was appointed University Professor, the highest
honor for faculty in the UC system.
She earned her B.A. in physics from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D.
in astronomy from Harvard University. She joined the faculty of UC Santa
Cruz and the UC Observatories/Lick Observatory in 1972.
Williams, an expert in animal physiology and energetics, has studied
a wide range of marine mammals, including dolphins, seals, sea otters,
and whales. She has also studied land animals, including cheetahs and
wild dogs in Africa.
Her current research projects include studies of Weddell seals in Antarctica
(where she is currently doing field research), Steller sea lions in
Alaska, and sea otters in Alaska and California. Her research on dolphins
includes ongoing work with the two resident dolphins at UCSC's Long
Marine Laboratory, Primo and Puka.
Williams is particularly interested in understanding the relationship
between an animal's physiology and its environment. Her investigations
offer insights into the capacity of marine mammals to tolerate environmental
changes. The populations of some of the animals she studies, including
California sea otters and Steller sea lions in the North Pacific, have
been declining for reasons that are still unclear.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill marked a turning point for Williams,
who directed the Valdez Sea Otter Rescue Center and coordinated a scientific
research team to assess the effects of crude oil on marine birds and
mammals. She said the experience made her realize she could not simply
focus on her research and let others do conservation.
Williams currently serves as a scientific adviser for California's
Oiled Wildlife Care Network and as an adviser to the National Marine
Fisheries Service's Steller Sea Lion Recovery Team.
Williams received her B.A. in biology from Douglass College in New
Brunswick, N.J., and her M.S. in physiology and Ph.D. in environmental
and exercise physiology from Rutgers University. She came to UCSC in
1993 as a marine research physiologist in the Institute of Marine Sciences
and joined the biology faculty as an assistant professor in 1994. In
2000, she became the first faculty member to hold the Ida Benson Lynn
Endowed Chair in Ocean Health.
McNutt is a geophysicist whose research focuses on the physical properties
of the Earth beneath the oceans. Recent projects include the history
of volcanism in French Polynesia and how it relates to broadscale convection
in the Earth's mantle, continental breakup in the western United States,
and the uplift of the Tibet plateau. Her research is both theoretical
and field-based, using data she has collected on nearly two dozen oceanographic
expeditions.
Since 1997, McNutt has been president and CEO of MBARI, a research
laboratory in Moss Landing funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
to develop and exploit new technology for the exploration of the oceans.
A primary focus of the institute is designing and building new tethered
and autonomous underwater vehicles and in situ sensor packages for increasing
the spatial and temporal sampling of the ocean and its inhabitants.
McNutt received a B.A. in physics from Colorado College in Colorado
Springs and a Ph.D. in Earth sciences from the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography in La Jolla. She spent 15 years on the faculty of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where she was appointed the Griswold Professor
of Geophysics.
She is a past president of the American Geophysical Union and a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. McNutt joined the UCSC
faculty in 1998. She also holds a faculty position at Stanford University.
Discover magazine's list of the "50 most important women
in science" includes eight faculty members of the University of
California, representing the Berkeley, Davis, San Francisco, and Santa
Cruz campuses.
In 1991, Discover also had a special issue on women in science
in which two UCSC faculty were featured: Adrienne Zihlman, professor
of anthropology (who appeared on the cover), and Deborah Letourneau,
professor of ecology (environmental studies).
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