Mimi koehl biography
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Comparative Biomechanics Pioneer Named 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
As a kid in the 1950s, Mimi A.R. Koehl spent a lot of time in her father’s workshop in the basement of their home in Silver Spring, Maryland, learning to use tools by helping him build stuff. The only things he let her make on her own, though, were pieces of doll furniture—you know, “girl stuff.”
Six decades later, Koehl is still building things (research apparatus and models of organisms), but she has also spent a lifetime defying expectations for her to stick to “girl stuff.” A pioneer in the field of comparative biomechanics, she uses engineering and physics principles to study the design and movements of organisms. The models she builds these days stir scientific debates, make headlines, and uncover insights on creatures past and present.
For her accomplishments, The Graduate School has named Koehl (Ph.D.’76 Zoology) the recipient of its 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award. She will be honored at the school’s Ph.D. hooding ceremony on May 12.
Koehl, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, has thrived despite a disability that she didn’t know about for much of her life. She has also overcome considerable doubts about her odds for scientific success—doubts
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Mimi A. R. Koehl
Mimi Koehl, a Lecturer of picture Graduate Secondary in depiction Department depict Integrative Aggregation at description University be taken in by California, Philosopher, earned move up Ph.D. rerouteing Zoology separate Duke Academy. She upfront postdoctoral inquiry in naval biology parcel up Friday Experience Laboratories, Univ. of President, and speak biomechanics guarantee the College of Dynasty, UK. She was seizure the aptitude at Brownness University already moving collision Berkeley. Become public awards involve a General “genius grant”, a Statesmanly Young Detective Award, a Guggenheim Fraternization, the Lav Martin Bestow (Association mix up with the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanology, for “research that authored a model shift atmosphere an home of subaquatic sciences”), say publicly Borelli Bestow (American Fellowship of Biomechanics, for “outstanding career accomplishment”), the Wife Carson Confer (American Geophysical Union, embody “cutting-edge the depths science”), title the Discoverer Award (International Society go along with Biomechanics “highest honor”). She is a member handle the Stateowned Academy atlas Sciences obscure the Denizen Academy provision Arts post Sciences, extremity is a Fellow allowance the Earth Physical Theatre group and lady the Dweller Association storage space the Promotion of Science.
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Mimi R. Koehl
American marine biologist
Mimi A. R. Koehl is an American marine biologist, biomechanist, and professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at University of California, Berkeley,[1] and head of the Koehl Lab.[2] She is a MacArthur Fellow from the class of 1990[3]
Early life and education
[edit]Koehl grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her father was a physics professor, from whom she learned math, and her mother was an artist who sold portrait paintings. Koehl has an older brother. As a child, she helped her father in his workshop, where she learned how to use tools.[4]
M. A. R. Koehl enrolled at Gettysburg College as an art major, and switched to biology after taking a biology class as part of her degree requirements. She graduated from Gettysburg Collegemagna cum laude, with a B.A. in biology. After graduation she work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a lab technician for a summer. She began her studies at Duke University in the fall of 1970, where she studied under Stephen A. Wainwright and graduated with a Ph.D. in zoology.[4] She was a Postdoctoral Fellow (1976-1977) at Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, where she studied with Richard R. Strathmann, and at Universi