Susan Kilham
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- Phycological Society of America Career Achievement Award
Susan S. Kilham | |
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| Born | 1943 |
| Died | 2022 (aged 78–79) |
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Susan Soltau Kilham (1943–2022) was an American aquatic ecologist. She made notable contributions to phycology and to ecological stoichiometry, and much of her research focused on diatoms. Kilham has also been described as a particularly prolific and impactful scientific mentor. She served on the faculty of the University of Michigan from the early 1970s until the early 1990s, and then moved to Drexel University, where she was a professor in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science, as well as chairing that department and serving on the faculty senate. Kilham received the Phycological Society of America Career Achievement Award, and is the namesake of a professorship at the University of Michigan.
Kilham was born in 1943.[2] She attended Eckerd College (then the Florida Presbyterian College), graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 1965.[3] As an undergraduate at Eckerd she worked as a research assistant to George K. Reid, who had been a founding faculty member of the college.[1]
Kilham graduated from Eckerd in 1965,[3] and then attended Duke University, where she earned a PhD in marine science in 1971.[3] Early in her career, Kilham's main research focus was deep-sea clams.[4] Her PhD dissertation was entitled Deep sea bivalve molluscs: shell morphology, mineralogy and geochemistry.[2]
After finishing her doctorate, Kilham worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and in 1973 joined the faculty at the University of Michigan.[3] In 1991 she moved to Drexel University where she became a professor in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science,[4] and she was affiliated with Drexel until she died in 2022.[3] She was at one point the Chair of the Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science, and she also served on the faculty senate.[4]
