The Living Sea: How a Group of Women Botanists Proved that Coral Reefs are Alive, 1880-1930
October 11, 2019, in the Linda Hall Library Auditorium. The lecture: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, algologists (a botanist who studies algae, also called phycologists) conducted research on the multiple ecological roles of algae on coral reefs. This talk explores how algologists, and in particular Anna Weber-van Bosse (1852-1942) and Ethel Barton Gepp (1864-1922), reframed the discussion of coral reefs from geological structures to living units, thus shaping the modern concept of the reef ecosystem. The speaker: Emily Hutcheson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in History of Science. She holds an MA in History of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MA in History and Philosophy of Science from Florida State University, and a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University. Her dissertation is on the history of coral reef science traces how reefs came to be seen as living communities between 1880 and 1930, through the work of a self-organized network of scientists.
