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Overview

Ruth Patrick (1907-) was the first woman elected to DuPont's Board of Directors. Born in Topeka, Kansas, Patrick earned a bachelor's degree at Coker College in South Carolina in 1929 and a Ph.D. in botany at the University of Virginia in 1934. Specializing in microscopic aquatic organisms called diatoms, she embarked on an academic career in limnology, or the study of freshwater ecosystems. In 1947 Patrick founded the Patrick Center for Environmental Research at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and later became the first woman to serve as Chair of that institution.

Patrick's long association with DuPont began in the early 1950s when the Atomic Energy Commission asked her to assess the ecological status of the Savannah River near Aiken, South Carolina, before DuPont began construction of a nuclear plant on the site. She continued to work closely with DuPont researchers on a wide range of ecological problems. In 1970 Patrick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences; five years later she joined DuPont's Board of Directors. She served on the Board's Committee on Audit from 1977 until her retirement in April 1980. Patrick continued her academic work on limnology into the 1980s and 1990s at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1988 the University of South Carolina's Ruth Patrick Science Education Center, which houses the DuPont Planetarium, was named in her honor. In 1996 Patrick won the National Medal of Science and was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology. That year the Department of Energy dedicated the Ruth Patrick wetlands preservation site near the Savannah River plant. Patrick currently is the Francis Boyer Chair of Limnology and Senior Curator at the National Academy of Sciences.

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