University of Alaska at Fairbanks Honors Its First Alumna

The University of Alaska at Fairbanks has named its new teaching and research facility in honor of Margaret “Mardy” Murie, an alumna of the university and a noted conservationist. The new Murie Building contains 100,000 square feet of space for classrooms and laboratories in the life sciences.

In 1924, Margaret Murie was the first woman to graduate from the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, which is now the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. She has been referred to as the “grandmother of the conservation movement.” Murie was instrumental in establishing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For her work, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton.

Murie died in 2003 at the age of 101.