Environmental scientist Dr. Ruth Patrick received the 2002 Mendel Medal

Neither snow, nor sleet nor slippery roads prevented the annual Mendel Award Dinner on Saturday evening, Jan. 19, in the Villanova Room of the Connelly Center from being celebrated. The Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A., University president, presented the 2002 Mendel Medal to Dr. Ruth Patrick, a pioneer in environmental science and founder in 1947 of the Limnology Department (now known as the Environmental Research Division) of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

In welcoming Patrick, her husband, Louis Van Dusen, and the other guests, the Rev. Kail C. Ellis, O.S.A., dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences noted that Patrick shared the title of pioneer with another biologist, Gregor Mendel, the 19th century Augustinian friar who is known as the father of genetics and whose memory the Mendel Medal honors.

Early in her career, she was among the few biologists responsible for raising serious ecological concern in our society, Father Ellis stated. Her pioneering efforts in the field of limnology, the study of freshwater ecosystems, are responsible for the way in which the environmental health of rivers and streams is evaluated today.

Father Ellis also noted that Patrick, as a very young woman in the 1920s, came up against the prevailing wisdom that women were not taken seriously as scientists, and overcame it. She earned a doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1934 and today, 66 years later, she remains honorary chairman of the board of trustees of the Academy of Natural Science. She also is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Earlier in the afternoon of Jan. 19, Patrick delivered a public lecture, titled Rivers and the Watershed.