The Marilyn L. Fogel Student Research Fund in Biogeosciences was established to honor Marilyn L. Fogel '73, professor emerita in earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Riverside. The fund supports research activities for undergraduate and graduate students at Penn State in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, with particular emphasis on enabling field or laboratory research focused on geology, ecology, meteorology, biogeochemistry, climate science, and geography.
"The classes I took in Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences showed me that I was able to use my knowledge and love of chemistry to begin to understand the biological, environmental, and ecological processes that shaped life on Earth. Pulling together faculty and students from diverse disciplines is going to solve Earth's largest problems." – Marilyn L. Fogel
Nittany Lion football games may have helped recruit Marilyn Fogel '73 to Penn State, but the academics hooked her.
Fogel, professor emerita in earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Riverside, enrolled as a biology major at Penn State at a time when men outnumbered women on campus by a 3 to 1 margin. Today, Fogel is one of the pre-eminent biogeoscientists of our time and has had a huge impact on the research and thinking of earth scientists at Penn State and around the world.
Fogel discovered the geosciences in her junior and senior years at Penn State. Two experiences in particular – both offered by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences – largely determined Fogel's career path as a biogeochemist. The first was a three-month research program in Virginia as part of Penn State's Wallops Island Marine Science program during its inaugural year (1972). The second was a special class in organic geochemistry taught by Peter H. Given, professor emeritus and first chair of what is now the Fuel Science Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
In Given's class, Fogel learned that she could apply her love of chemistry to other fields to understand the biological, environmental, and ecological processes that shaped life on Earth.
"This was the start of my life-long journey into interdisciplinary science," she says.
The Marilyn L. Fogel Student Research Fund in Biogeosciences honors Dr. Marilyn L. Fogel and supports research activities for undergraduate and graduate students at Penn State in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, with particular emphasis on enabling field or laboratory research focused on geology, ecology, meteorology, biogeochemistry, climate science, and geography. Marilyn and her husband, Chris Swarth, designed this fund to allow students to explore new ways of thinking and new fields of science as they grow in their careers – without feeling the need to become pigeonholed into one academic discipline.
"Today, Chris and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to create an endowed fund that promotes the biogeosciences in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute," says Fogel. "We know the importance of providing opportunities for students and postdocs to experience thinking outside of a traditional scientific field and open their minds to a new way of critical thinking."
The Marilyn L. Fogel Student Research Fund in Biogeosciences supports research activities for undergraduate and graduate students at Penn State in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, such as those listed here.
- Penn State students, citizen scientists take snapshot of Shaver's Creek
- Forest margins may be more resilient to climate change than previously thought