Event Honors Maine Women in Science
Contact: Mary Dickinson Bird, Chair, Friends of Dr. Edith Marion Patch, 866-2578
ORONO –The University of Maine’s remarkable women in science — past, present, and future — were the honored at a special Earth Day reception held on Sunday, April 27. The Annual Earth Day Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Edith Marion Patch originated three years ago in memory of the University of Maine’s first woman scientist, Edith Patch, who came to Orono in 1903 to establish the entomology department. This year’s reception recalled Dr. Patch’s contribution to science, and paid special tribute to the “Heirs of Edith Patch,” the women engaged in scientific work today at the University of Maine. The event was co-sponsored by the Friends of Dr. Edith Marion Patch, the Friends of Fogler Library, and the Women in Science, a student organization.
Two graduate students, Christy Finlayson and Tiffany Wilson, were invited speakers at the reception. Finlayson, a Ph.D. candidate in Biological Sciences, discussed her research on native and non-native ladybug species in Maine, as well as her study of invasive species on Midway Island, in the Pacific Ocean. Wilson, completing an M.S. in Ecology and Environmental Sciences, shared her research on pH and phosphorus levels in the sediments of three Maine lakes. An engineering student, Heidi Purrington, showed her collaborative design for a new type of pulse meter, and undergraduates Aimee Guy, Corinne Grant, Danijela Krsmanovic, Alice Doughty, and Jennifer Dionne also spoke about their studies and their plans for science-based careers.
Like their predecessor, Edith Patch, today’s women in science at UMaine bring talent and determination to their work. Fortunately, unlike Dr. Patch, they can look forward to many opportunities, resources, and even legal protections that will help them as they work to achieve their goals. In 1903, when Edith Patch began working in Orono, there was serious doubt about a woman’s capacity to carry out scientific research, which until then had been considered men’s work. As a consequence, no salary was approved for Patch’s first year on the job. At the end of that probationary year, she had done such a good job of setting of the department and establishing its research agenda that she was officially placed on the payroll. Edith Patch remained at the University of Maine for the rest of her career, authoring more than 80 scientific and technical publications, as well as hundreds of nature stories, articles, poems, and books for children, teachers, parents, and home gardeners. In addition to her scientific and educational work, Patch made her mark as an environmentalist long before Rachel Carson, warning that widespread use of chemical pesticides would harm beneficial insects and songbirds, as well as insect pests.
For today’s women in science at the University of Maine, the future looks bright. As they consider their plans for further academic study and for careers in the sciences, these women are treading in the footsteps of the University’s first, pioneering woman in science, Edith Marion Patch.