Lynn Margulis
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Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
Photo: UMASS Photo Services |
Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences
at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been a member of the
National Academy of
Sciences since 1983. She is best known for her pathbreaking work on the
bacterial
origins of cell organelles and for her collaboration with Dr. James
Lovelock on his "Gaia
hypothesis," (she still communicates with Dr. Lovelock). Margulis
writes about
planetary life, planetary evolution, and the ways our views of them are
changing. In her
work she vigorously puts forward the view that symbiosis (members of
different species living in physical contact with one another) is
crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Margulis' work
represents a prime example of "narratives of discovery."
Her publications, spanning a wide range of scientific topics,
range from professional to children's literature and include 23 authored
or co-authored books. Her books
include Symbiotic Planet [A New Look at Evolution], Symbiosis in Cell
Evolution, Five
Kingdoms with (K. V. Schwartz) and (with Dorion Sagan) Origins of Sex,
Garden of
Microbial Delights, What Is Life?, What is Sex?, and Slanted Truths:
Essays on Gaia,
Symbiosis and Evolution. She has also participated in the development
of science
teaching materials at levels from elementary to graduate school. She
published a hands-on middle school unit with students and
colleagues: "What Happens to Trash and Garbage? An Introduction to the
Carbon Cycle" and has developed several others, including "Peas and
Particles" and "Living Sands: Mapping Time and Space."
Margulis received an A.B. (Liberal Arts) from the University
of Chicago, an M.S.
(Genetics-Zoology) from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D.
(Genetics from the
University of California, Berkeley. She held a Sherman Fairchild
Fellowship at the
California Institute of Technology (1977) and a Guggenheim Fellowship
(1979). She is
an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (1983), the
World
Academy of Art and Science (1995), the Russian Academy of Natural
Sciences (1997)
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998) and was recently
(Nov., 1999)
awarded the Sigma Xi's distinguished Proctor Prize. She has received
eight honorary
doctorate degrees, national and international. She has made
contributions to research on
cell biology and on microbial evolution. From 1977 to 1980, she chaired
the National
Academy of Science's Space Science Board Committee on Planetary Biology
and
Chemical Evolution, aiding in the development of research strategies for
NASA. She
received a NASA Public Service award in 1981. Currently, she serves on
the science
council of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, and co-directs
NASA's Planetary
Biology Internship (PBI) Program, administered through the Marine
Biology Laboratory,
Woods Hole.
Her current projects include studies of the bacterial
symbionts of termites and of
protists from microbial mat communities and she readily admits to
obtaining great
pleasure from spying on, filming, and writing scientific papers on the
lives of protoctists
and other microcosmic beings with whom we share our planet Nearly
thirty years after
she first proposed it, Margulis continues to work out the consequences
of the modern
serial endosymbiosis theory (SET).
Dr. Margulis lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. She is the
mother of four children, the oldest of whom is her co-writer, Dorion
Sagan.
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