Biography of Rita R. Colwell

As a scientist and professor, Rita R. Colwell (born 1934) has investigated the ecology, physiology, and evolutionary relationships of marine bacteria.

National Science Foundation (NSF) director Rita R. Colwell is a leader in marine biotechnology, the application of molecular techniques to marine biology for the harvesting of medical, industrial, and aquaculture products from the sea. As a scientist and professor, Colwell has investigated the ecology, physiology, and evolutionary relationships of marine bacteria. As a founder and president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI), she has nurtured a vision to improve the environment and human health by linking molecular biology and genetics to basic knowledge scientists had gleaned from life and chemistry in the oceans.

Rita Rossi was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, November 23, 1934, the seventh of eight children to parents Louis and Louise Di Palma Rossi. Her father was an Italian immigrant who established his own construction company, and her mother was an artistic woman who worked to help ensure her children would have a good education. She died when her daughter was just thirteen years old, but she had been proud of her success in school. In the sixth grade, after Rossi had scored higher on the IQ exam than anyone in her school's history, the principal asked sternly whether she understood that she had the responsibility to go to college. Rossi had answered, "Yes, ma'am," and eventually received a full scholarship from Purdue University. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree with distinction in bacteriology in 1956. Although she had been accepted to medical school, Rossi chose instead to earn a master's degree so that she could remain at the same institution as graduate student Jack Colwell, whom she married on May 31, 1956. Colwell would have continued her studies in bacteriology, but the department chairman at Purdue informed her that giving fellowship money to women would have been a waste. She instead earned her master's degree in the department of genetics. The University of Washington, Seattle, granted her a Ph.D. in 1961 for work on bacteria commensal to marine animals, which is the practice of an organism obtaining food or other benefits from another without either harming or helping it. Colwell's contributions included establishing the basis for the systematics of marine bacteria.

In 1964, Georgetown University hired Colwell as an assistant professor, and gave her tenure in 1966. Colwell and her research team were the first to recognize that the bacterium that caused cholera occurred naturally in estuaries. They isolated the bacterium from Chesapeake Bay and in ensuing years sought to explain how outbreaks in human populations might be tied to the seasonal abundance of the host organisms in the sea, particularly plankton. In 1972, Colwell took a tenured professorship at the University of Maryland. Her studies expanded to include investigations on the impact of marine pollution at the microbial level. Among her findings was that the presence of oil in estuarine and open ocean water was associated with the numbers of bacteria able to break down oil. She studied whether some types of bacteria might be used to treat oil spills. Colwell and her colleagues also made a discovery that held promise for improving oyster yields in aquaculture--a bacterial film formed on surfaces under water attracted oyster larvae to settle and grow.

In the spirit of using knowledge gained from the sea to benefit humans and the environment, Colwell prepared a seminal paper on marine biotechnology published in the journal Science in 1983. It brought attention to the rich resources of the ocean that might be tapped for food, disease-curing drugs, and environmental clean-up by the applications of genetic engineering and cloning. In order to realize the potential of marine biotechnology as originally outlined in her 1983 paper, Colwell helped foster the concept and growth of the UMBI, established in 1987. As president of the UMBI, she has formed alliances between researchers and industry and has succeeded in raising funds to develop the center as a prestigious biotech research complex.

In addition, Colwell has held numerous professional and academic leadership positions throughout her career and is a widely published researcher. At the University of Maryland, Colwell was director of the Sea Grant College from 1977 to 1983. She served as president of Sigma Xi, the American Society for Microbiology, and the International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, and was president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Colwell has written and edited more than a dozen books and over six hundred papers and articles; she also produced an award-winning film, Invisible Seas. Her honors included the 1985 Fisher Award of the American Society for Microbiology, the 1990 Gold Medal Award of the International Institute of Biotechnology, and the 1993 Phi Kappa Phi National Scholar Award.

On February 13, 1998, President Bill Clinton announced his nomination of Colwell to the directorship of the National Science Foundation. Colwell was the first woman to hold the top position in this agency. She continues in that post today, and has become known for her emphasis on kindergarten through twelfth-grade science and mathematics education and boosting participation of women and minorities in science and engineering. Colwell also retains her status as professor of microbiology and biotechnology (on leave) at UMBI. In addition, she cowrote the 2000 book The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science.

Colwell is the mother of two daughters who have pursued careers in science. She is an advocate for equal rights for women, and one of her long-standing aspirations is to write a novel about a woman scientist. Her hobbies include jogging and competitive sailing.

Historical Context

• The Life and Times of Rita R. Colwell (1934-)
• At the time of Colwell's birth:
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was president of the United States
• Heinrich Himmler was named head of German concentration camps
• Dionne quintuplets born in Callander, Ontario
• The times:
• 1939-1945: World War II
• 1950-1953: Korean War
• 1957-1975: Vietnam War
• Colwell's contemporaries:
• Toni Morrison (1931-) American writer
• Dian Fossey (1932-1985) American primatologist
• Gloria Steinem (1934-) American feminist
• Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American astronomer
• Jim Dine (1935-) American artist
• Elvis Presley (1935-1977) American rock singer
• Antonin Scalia (1936-) American Supreme Court justice
• Robert Gallo (1937-) American virologist who discovered HIV
• Janet Reno (1938-) American Attorney General
• Selected world events:
• 1935: Social Security Act passed
• 1941: Penicillin purified; proven to fight bacterial infections
• 1946: Cold War begins
• 1955: Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is used for first time in U.S
• 1958: James Watson and Francis Crick develop model of DNA molecule
• 1962: Cuban missile crisis
• 1969: Neil Armstrong is first person to walk on the Moon
• 1979: Egypt and Israel sign formal peace treaty
• 1989: Exxon Valdez runs aground, causes oil spill off Alaska
• 1996: Ted Kaczynski charged with 18-year-old Unabomber mystery

Further Reading

• Andrews, Joan Kostick, "Lady With A Mission," in Natural Science, May, 1991, pp. 304-310.
• Henderson, Randi, "Scientist Plays Many Roles," in The Baltimore Sun, October 13, 1991.

• The National Science Foundation, "Dr. Rita Rossi Colwell, Director," at: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/forum/colwell/rrcbio.htm (September 18, 2001).
• Amazon.com, search on "Rita R. Colwell," at: http://www.amazon.com (September 18, 2001).

• Sherman, Scott L., "The Long Road From the Laboratory," in Warfield's, August, 1990.