Ruth Patrick (1) (1907–2013)

Ruth Patrick was born in Topeka, Kansas. Her father Frank Patrick, a banker and lawyer, was a hobbyist scientist. He often took his children for walks to collect specimens from local streams, which kindled in her a lifelong interest in nature. She graduated from the Sunset Hill School in Kansas City, Missouri and got a bachelor's degree in biology from Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina. She then went to the University of Virginia, where she earned a master's degree in botany in 1931, followed by a PhD in 1934. She moved to Philadelphia, where in that era of the Great Depression, she worked as a volunteer at the Academy of Natural Sciences for eight years. In 1937, she began to consolidate the academy’s diatom collection, augmenting it by collecting species in the field and by acquiring species from other sources. In 1945, she was named curator of microscopy and finally put on the payroll. Dr. Patrick invented the diatometer, a device to take better samples for studying diversity in water ecology and became a pioneer in the use of biodiversity to determine a body of water's overall health. In 1966, she and fellow researcher Charles W. Reimer published the first volume of The Diatoms of the United States Exclusive of Alaska and Hawaii, a now-classic two-volume series describing the taxonomy of this group of organisms. Dr. Patrick's interests expanded to include conservation. Her work with both academics and industry fostered a better understanding of pollutants and their effect on rivers, lakes, and drinking water sources. She helped to develop the guidelines for the Clean Water Act in Congress. In 1970, she explored the possibility of using tidal flats and wetlands as natural wastewater-treatment systems. This research inspired watershed-management projects around the world to include provisions for constructed wetlands. She was named a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1972, she received the Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America, and in 1996 she was given the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography’s Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year, she received the National Medal of Science.