Rita R Colwell

Early life and education

Rita Colwell was born on November 23, 1934, in Beverly, Massachusetts. Her parents, Louis and Louise Rossi, had eight children, Rita being the seventh child born into the Rossi household. Neither her mother nor her father were from scientific backgrounds. In 1956, Rita obtained a B.S. in bacteriology from Purdue University. She also received her M.S in genetics from Purdue. Colwell's Ph.D. is from the University of Washington in the field of oceanography. She participated in a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa.

Career

Colwell is recognized for her study of global infectious diseases through water sources and its impacts on global health. Through this research, she has developed an international network that has brought attention to the emergence of new infectious diseases in drinking/bathing water, pertaining mostly to its role on the developing world.

Cholera research

During early research and study of cholera, Colwell discovered that cholera can lay dormant in unfavorable conditions and then resume normal functions when conditions are favorable again.

Many of her research papers have been published focusing on abating the spread of cholera in the developing world by developing ways to track its spread and researching inexpensive methods for filtrating out the infections agents of cholera in water systems. Some of these tracking methods include observing weather patterns, surface water temperatures, chlorophyll concentrations, and rainfall patterns. Colwell's findings of correlations between these phenomena showed that the infection rate of cholera is connected to water temperatures. This rising temperature causes algae blooms that host cholera bacteria, and rainfall and extreme weather patterns aid in spreading infectious hosts of cholera among water systems. Colwell also concluded that climate change will have a profound impact on the spread of cholera.

Colwell has proposed ways people in the developing world can use inexpensive methods to filter water when water treatment facilities are not available. In one study spanning about 3 years, 65 villages in rural Bangladesh comprising 133,000 individuals, participated in an experiment in which they used folded sari cloth or nylon mesh filters placed over water pots to acquire safe drinking water from their local water ways. These inexpensive and readily available materials yielded a 48% reduction in cholera, when compared with the control: absence of any type of filter.

National Science Foundation

Colwell was the first female director of the foundation and held this position from 1998–2004. In a presentation to members of the foundation in 2002, she detailed what the foundation should address in the future. She explained that an educated society is critical not just for developing technology, but for supporting that development, both by the public and by government.

Colwell is interested in K-12 science and mathematical education, and she is a proponent of increasing the number of women and minorities in science and engineering. Rita Colwell was responsible for doubling the funding to the NSF initiative ADVANCE, which supports the advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers. Colwell also pushed to invest $60 million as part of a new priority area in mathematical and statistical sciences.

In 2004, Colwell completed her term as director of the National Science Foundation. She followed that position by becoming the chief scientist at Canon U.S. Life Sciences, a division of Canon. She served as chairman of Canon U.S. Life Sciences until 2006, when she was named as Senior Advisor and Chairman Emeritus.

Academia

Colwell joined the faculty of the Department of Biology at Georgetown University in 1964, and she gained tenure there in 1966. While at Georgetown, Colwell and her research team were the first to learn that the causative agent of cholera was found naturally in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. In 1972, Colwell accepted a tenured professorship at the University of Maryland. She remains a professor at the University of Maryland at College Park and at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At the University of Maryland at College Park, she is a Distinguished University Professor in the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), which is part of the University's College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.

CosmosID

Colwell founded the company CosmosID in 2008, and she currently serves as Global Service Officer and Active Chairman. CosmosID is a bioinformatics company dedicated to making the world a healthier and safer place by developing various types of equipment to identify microbial activity in a variety of ecosystems. In doing so, CosmosID ensures prompt, accurate responses, appropriate medical therapies, and corrective actions to prevent public health risks.

Publications and media

Rita Colwell has authored or co-authored more than 800 scientific reports and publications along with 19 books.

In 1977, Colwell produced the award-winning film, Invisible Seas. In this 26 minute film, the microbiology department at the University of Maryland, College Park demonstrates what types of methodology are required of marine microbiologists when studying microorganisms in the ocean. They emphasize the importance of marine microbiologists studying microorganisms in the ocean in order to determine the impact pollution has had on our oceans.

Colwell is the founding editor of GeoHealth, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Colwell recognized the increase in published Geohealth research due to the advancement in our understanding of how Earth and space science provides deeper insight into health and disease in both people and ecosystems. GeoHealth expects to start accepting publications in the fall of 2016.

Awards and recognition

Colwell is the recipient of 61 honorary degrees, including Honorary Doctorates from the University of Notre Dame and the University of St Andrews in 2016.

Personal life

Colwell met her husband, Jack Colwell, when he was a physical chemistry graduate student at Purdue. Rita and Jack have raised two daughters, both of whom followed their parents footsteps into their own scientific careers.