Isabella Aiona Abbott (June 20, 1919 – October 28, 2010) was an educator, phycologist, and
ethnobotanist from Hawaii. The first
native Hawaiian woman to receive a
PhD in
science,[1] she became a leading expert on Pacific marine
algae.[2]
Early life
Abbott was born Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona in
Hana,
Maui,
Territory of Hawaii, on June 20, 1919. Her Hawaiian name means "white rain of Hana" and she was known as "Izzy".[3] Her father was ethnically Chinese while her mother was a
Native Hawaiian. Her mother taught her about edible
Hawaiian seaweeds[3] and the value and diversity of Hawaii's native plants. Abbott was the only girl and second youngest in a family of eight siblings.[4]
In 1966 she became a research associate and taught as a lecturer at Hopkins. She compiled a book on marine algae of the
Monterey peninsula, which later was expanded to include all of the California coast. She was awarded the
Darbaker Prize by the
Botanical Society of America in 1969.[6] By 1972,
Stanford University promoted her directly to full professor of Biology, where she was the first woman and first person of color in this position.[7]
In 1982 both Abbotts retired and moved back to Hawaii, where she was hired by the University of Hawaii to teach
ethnobotany, the interaction of humans and plants.[3]
She authored eight books and over 150 publications. She was considered the world's leading expert on Hawaiian seaweeds, known in the
Hawaiian language as limu. She was credited with discovering over 200 species, with several named after her, including the
Rhodomelaceae family (red algae) genus of Abbottella.[4] This earned her the nickname "First Lady of Limu."
She was the G. P. Wilder Professor of Botany from 1980 until her retirement in 1982, when she and her husband moved to Hawaii where she continued her research as the professor emerita of botany at the University of Hawaii.[10] She served on the board of directors of the
Bernice P. Bishop Museum.[11] In November 1997 she co-authored an essay in the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin criticizing the trustees of Kamehameha Schools, which led to its reorganization.[12][13] In 1988 she was elected a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.[14]
She was considered the foremost authority on the algae of the Pacific Ocean basin and in 2008 she received a lifetime achievement award from the
Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources for her studies of coral reefs.[17]
The Board of Regents of the University of Hawaiʻi unanimously voted to rename the Life Sciences Building after Abbott in 2023.[16][18]
Death
Isabella Kauakea Aiona Abbott died at October 28, 2010 at the age of 91 at her home in
Honolulu.[19] Abbott's surviving family includes her daughter Annie Abbott Foerster, and a granddaughter, both residing in Hawaii.
To preserve Abbott's legacy and career as a botanist, the
University of Hawaiʻi established a scholarship to support graduate research in Hawaiian
ethnobotany and marine botany.[20]
Works
Isabella A. Abbott (1947). Brackish-Water Algae from the Hawaiian Islands. Pacific Science.
Isabella A. Abbott (1961). On Schimmelmannia from California and Japan.
Isabella A. Abbott (1970). Yamadaella, a new genus in the Nemaliales (Rhodophyta). Phycologia
Isabella A. Abbott; Munenao Kurogi (1972). Contributions to the systematics of Benthic Marine Algae of the North Pacific: Proceedings of a seminar on the contributions of culture, laboratory, field and life history studies to the systematics of benthic marine algae of the Pacific ; Japan–U.S. cooperative science program, August 13–16, 1971. Sapporo, Japan: Japanese Society of Psychology.
Isabella Aiona Abbott; Eleanor Horswill Williamson (1974). Limu: an ethnobotanical study of some edible Hawaiian seaweeds. Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden.
Isabella A. Abbott; Michael S. Foster; Louise F. Eklund. "Pacific seaweed aquaculture". Proceedings of a symposium on useful algae, March 6–8, 1980; Pacific Grove, California. California Sea Grant College Program, Institute of Marine Resources, University of California.
Isabella Aiona Abbott (1990). A taxonomic and nomenclatural assessment of the species of Liagora (Rhodophyta, Nemaliales) in the herbarium of Lamouroux.
Isabella A. Abbott (1995). Taxonomy of Economic Seaweeds With reference to some Pacific species. California Sea Grant College Program. Eight volume series from an international workshop hosted by the University of Hawaiʻi, Honolulu, July 1993
Isabella A. Abbott (April 1996). New Species and Notes on Marine Algae from Hawaiʻi. Pacific Science. University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Isabella A. Abbott (July 1996). Ethnobotany of seaweeds: clues to uses of seaweeds. Hydrobiologia. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Alan J.K. Millar; Isabella A. Abbott (1997). The new genus and species Ossiella pacifica (Griffithsieae, Rhodophyta) from Hawaii and Norfolk Island, Pacific Ocean. Journal of Phycology.
G.T. Kraft; Isabella A. Abbott (1997). Platoma ardreanum (Schizymeniaeae, Gigartinales) and Halymenia chiangiana (Halymeniaceae, Halymeniales), two new species of proliferous, foliose red algae from the Hawaiian Islands. Cryptogamie, Algologie.
Isabella Aiona Abbott (1998). Some new species and new combinations of marine red algae from the central Pacific. Phycological Research.
Isabella A. Abbott; John Marinus Huisman (June 2005). Studies in the Liagoraceae (Nemaliales, Rhodophyta) I. The genus Trichogloea. Phycological Research.
M.S. Kim; I.A. Abbott (March 2006). Taxonomic notes on Hawaiian Polysiphonia, with transfer to Neosiphonia (Rhodomelaceae, Rhodophyta). Phycological Research.
Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine (April 2006). Ganonema vermiculare sp nov (Liagoraceae, Rhodophyta), a new species from Puerto Rico, Caribbean Sea. Botanica Marina.
C.F. Gurgel; R. Terada; I.A. Abbott; et al. (April 2006). Towards a global phylogeography of Gracilaria salicornia (gracilariaceae, rhodophyta), an invasive species in Hawaii, based on chloroplast and mitochondrial markers. Journal of Phycology.
Isabella Aiona Abbott; John Marinus Huisman; Celia M. Smith (2007).
Hawaiian Reef Plants. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program.
Roy T. Tsuda; Isabella A. Abbott; Peter S. Vroom; et al. (April 2008). Additional marine benthic algae from Howland and Baker Islands, central Pacific. Pacific Science.
Roy T. Tsuda; Isabella A. Abbott; Peter S. Vroom; et al. (October 2010). Marine Benthic Algae of Johnston Atoll: New Species Records, Spatial Distribution, and Taxonomic Affinities with Neighboring Islands. Pacific Science.
Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine; Daniel C. O'Doherty (July 2010). Morphological relationships within the genus Lophocladia (Rhodomelaceae, Rhodophyta) including a description of L. kuesteri sp nov from Hawaiʻi. Phycologia.
Isabella A. Abbott; David L. Ballantine (July 2012). Veleroa setteana, n. sp (Rhodophyta: Rhodomelaceae), from the Hawaiian Archipelago, including Notes on the Generitype. Pacific Science.