Pacific Southwest Research Station

Pacific Southwest Research Station
800 Buchanan Street
West Annex Building
Albany, CA 94710-0011

(510) 559-6300

Research Topics

Water & Watersheds: Caspar Creek Watershed Study

South Fork Caspar Creek Station Names:

OGI: Ogilvie, Ida Helen (1874-1968). Geologist. Studied zoology as a young woman, then switched to geology, getting her PhD from the University of Chicago. Studied glaciers in British Columbia, volcanic rocks in Maine, and the geology of the Ortiz mountain in New Mexico, the Adirondacks, and the San Gabriels in California. Taught at Barnard College for most of her academic career.

POR: Porter, Edith. Conservationist. Secretary of the Women's Save the Redwoods League, Eureka, 1923. This group, headed by Mrs. J.P. Mahon, was instrumental in publicizing information about the redwoods, organizing public opinion both locally and nationally, and raising money to buy redwood groves.

QUE: Quetelet, Lambert Adolphe Jacques (1796-1874). Mathematician and statistician. Lived and worked at the Brussels Royal Observatory, where he studied astronomy, geophysics, meteorology, and sociology. He developed and explained the concept of the mean and the normal distribution, which he applied to various data on people collected by the French government. "The father of modern statistics".

RIC: Richards, Ellen Henrietta Swallow (1842-1911). The first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A chemist by training, she started her career studying water and sewage systems. She is most known for her work on the interconnection of people and the environment we live in, and for this work is considered the founder of the science of ecology.

SEQ: Sequoyah (1776-1843). Linguist. Most famous for developing a syllabary which made it possible to write in his native Cherokee language. He is the only person known to have invented such a system entirely by himself, and it took him more than 20 years. After it's completion, the writing system was adopted by the tribal council, and, soon spread throughout the tribe. The tribal council started publishing a newspaper, which was later suppressed by the state of Georgia because it defended Cherokee rights to their lands. Moved with his people to Oklahoma and helped keep the peace there. The genus Sequoia was named for him by the Hungarian botanist Stephen Endilicher.

TRE: Treat, Mary (1830-1923). Economic entomologist and botanist. Most of her work was on biology and control of insect pests, but she also studied plants, particularly insectivorous plants. An early advocate of evolution, she impressed Darwin with her experiments on controlling the sexes of butterflies. Treat also collaborated with Darwin in research on carnivorous plants and Darwin acknowledged her contribution in his book, Insectivorous Plants, published in 1875.

UQL: al-Uqlidisi, Abu'l-Hasan Ahmed ibn Ibrahim (920-980). Mathematician. Author of a book, dated 953, which discussed mathematics and how to teach it. One major subject was how to convert the dust arithmetic practiced in India into something that could be done on paper. Dust arithmetic was related to calculating with an abacus, and involved wiping out numerals and replacing them with different ones in order to get the desired result (multiplication, division, and square roots).

WIL: Williams, Marguerite Thomas (1895-19??). Geologist, Geographer. The first African-American female PhD in geology, Williams' doctoral dissertation was on erosion in the Anacostia drainage basin, New York State. Like many women scientists of her time, she started teaching shortly after finishing her BA (at Howard University, 1923), and got her further education over time while continuing to teach. (MA Columbia 1930, PhD Catholic University 1942). She taught at Miner Teachers College (later the University of the District of Columbia), and at Howard.

YOC: Yocom, Charles (1914--??). Wildlife biologist. Research interests included wildlife conservation, ornithology, mammology, aquatic biology, and scientific illustration. Author of The Pacific Coast Wildlife Region (1957) among many other books on this area. Emeritus professor at HSU 1978-1992? (I don't know if he's still alive, but he hasn't published or had a professional position for a while).

ZIE: Ziemer, Robert R. (1937- ). Research hydrologist. The only known living member on this list (although there might be some debate about that). Leader of the Redwood Sciences Laboratory watershed and fisheries project. Put on this list by some miscreants.

References:

Bailey, Martha J. 1994. American Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO, Denver, Colorado.

Bois, Danuta. Distinguished women of past and present.

Gillispie, Charles Coulton, ed. 1975. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

Johanson, Bruce E. and D.A. Grinde, Jr. 1998. The Encyclopedia of Native American Biography. Da Capo Press, New York.

Munz, Phillip with David D. Keck. 1973. A California Flora and Supplement. University of California Press, Berkeley.

National Women's History Project, 1997. Outstanding Women in Mathematics and Science. photo display set. NWHP, Windsor, CA.

Simmons, Vivian Ovelton. 1990. Blacks in Science and Medicine. Hemisphere publishing, New York.

Women Start Campaign to Save Flats. Humboldt Times, Dec. 3rd, 1923. Clipping supplied by Save the Redwoods League, San Francisco, CA.

Research contact:

• Leslie Reid