Sallie Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been selected to receive the prestigious Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology from the president of Catalonia at a ceremony in Barcelona in October. The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is named for Ramon Margalef, a Catalonian scientist who is considered the founding father of modern ecology.
Dr. Chisholm is a distinguished biological oceanographer. In 1988, she was part of a team that discovered the world’s smallest, yet most abundant, photosynthetic organism. Professor Chisholm has been on the MIT faculty since 1976.
Dr. Chisholm is a graduate of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She holds a Ph.D. in marine biology from the State University of New York at Albany. Earlier this year, she was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Obama.