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Building named for Oceanographer Ann Gall DurbinVisitors to the University of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay Campus never fail to remark about the beautiful flowers that grace the brick and concrete buildings. Many of the lovely gardens that come to life every spring are there through the efforts of the late Ann Gall Durbin, a biological oceanographer who loved her work and loved the place where she worked. Now the Aquarium Building in which she conducted research for nearly 20 years has become the Ann Gall Durbin Aquarium Building as a tribute to her excellence as a Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) scientist and her dedication to her family, friends, and colleagues. At a ceremony on the Narragansett Bay Campus, about 100 people gathered to dedicate the building and remember Durbin. Speakers included former GSO dean Margaret Leinen, who is currently the National Science Foundation Associate Director for Geoscience. "Ann was passionate about life and about science," said Leinen. "As a scientist she was regarded as 'one of the best-read scholars in zoological oceanography.' But Ann was also a person who cared enormously about the University and the School of Oceanography and tended the gardens of the Bay Campus as lovingly as the gardens at her home. She was a fighter, a winner, and a heroine to many of us." URI president Robert L. Carothers, GSO biological oceanographer James Yoder, GSO marine scientist William Macy, Durbin's sister Stephanie Amerigian, and Durbin's husband, GSO biological oceanographer Edward Durbin, also spoke. Her children, Sarah and Allan Durbin, cut the ribbon that officially opened the doors of the newly named facility. Durbin, who died in 1995, spent all of her professional life at the University. After receiving her Ph.D. in biological oceanography from URI in 1976, she became a research associate. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1980, associate professor in 1982, and full professor in 1993. Durbin's research focused on quantifying food chain dynamics and the levels in the marine food web to better understand the complex interactions that ultimately determine species composition and abundance within marine ecosystems. In the laboratory and in the field, she studied the microscopic plankton communities at the base of the food web, the plankton-feeding fishes, as well as their predators, the carnivorous fishes. By Lisa Cugini |
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