A Virginia girl, Connie was born in Richmond and raised in Williamsburg where her father was a professor of economics at the College of William and Mary. Her love of science began early, apparent by the fact that she was the only girl in her high school science club. She was also a member of the school's award-wining debating team and the skills she learned there have served her well in her later "discussions" with the management in OCE.

Connie left Virginia for Rhode Island where she obtained her BS and MS degrees from Brown University under the inspiring advisorship of John Imbrie. She was at the right time and place to get involved with the CLIMAP project in its early stages. Here she mastered the innovative techniques of transfer functions and spectral analysis, which she employed quite imaginatively in her research on diatom paleoecology. Like many an East-Coaster, she could not resist the allure of the West and left Brown for Oregon State University. At OSU she began her Ph.D. work under Ted Moore, sharing an office with Margaret Leinen, a fellow graduate student. Here she applied herself diligently to become a bonafide member of the now legendary OSU group that would go on to significantly influence ocean sciences in our times. Her Ph.D. thesis was entitled: Oceanography of the North Pacific during the Last 18,000 Years Derived from Fossil Diatoms.

Post-OSU, Connie spent two years as a post-doc at Stanford, under the mentorship of another legend, Jerry van Andel. From Stanford she returned to her roots on the East Coast and joined Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory in 1979. Her research was focused on determining the quality of the deep-sea microfossil record and what factors affected its preservation. She employed sediment traps to observe what happens to shelled microorganisms once they start descending towards the seafloor, and published over 50 papers on diatom paleoecology, paleoclimatology and productivity. Having done "enough with sediment traps", she yielded to our invitation to come to NSF in 1992.

At NSF she has been an extremely effective program director, always feeling responsible for the PIs she served. She maintains that the part of the job she enjoyed most was being able to help scientists on how to present their ideas clearly and/or how to improve their proposals for peer review. Throughout her career, Connie has been driven by this sense to serve the scientific community. This is also evident from her extensive committee work, as a member of the MG&G and OCE advisory panels, as office-holder of several scientific societies, and as founder and first treasurer of the Association for Women Geoscientists. In addition to being a member of several professional associations, she was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1984 and American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1990.

After retirement Connie intends to continue working part time in science, but will devote much of her energy towards volunteering for children's camps and educational organizations. We wish Connie the best of luck in all her new endeavors.

by Bilal Haq