Remembering Professor and Mentor Susan Williams
Faculty and staff will be gathering at UC Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory this afternoon not for their weekly seminar but to remember their colleague Susan Williams who died in a car crash Tuesday (April 24) while en route to the Davis campus to teach.
A resident of Bodega Bay, she had made the drive to campus countless times, devoted to her teaching as much as her research on coastal ecosystems. But this day, she would not make it — killed in an early morning crash on Lakeville Highway in Petaluma. Police said a pickup crossed the double-yellow line and struck Williams’ car head-on, setting off a six-vehicle pileup. Three other people were injured.
Williams, 66, a distinguished professor of evolution and ecology and an inspired proponent of marine education and ocean conservation, joined UC Davis as the lab director in 2000. She held the post for 10 years before resuming a full-time schedule of teaching and research.
“This is a tremendous loss for students and her colleagues at both the Bodega Marine Laboratory and on the Davis campus,” said Mark Winey, dean of the College of Biological Sciences, home of the Department of Evolution and Ecology as well as the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute. “Her scientific excellence, outstanding teaching and caring mentoring will be missed.”
Williams is survived by her husband, Bruce Nyden. Funeral information was not yet available.
Public servant and mentor
Williams was instrumental in demonstrating the impact that ocean health holds for local communities. In 2010, she was the recipient of the Academic Senate’s Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award for her longtime efforts to increase protection of coastal waters. She lent her expertise to successful legislation expanding the boundaries of two national marine sanctuaries off Northern California: Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank.
Upon stepping down from her leadership role at the marine laboratory, she dedicated herself again to teaching as well as developing entry-level curricula for marine biology programs to inspire undergraduate students.
As a mentor, she championed inclusion and diversity in the sciences. “She mentored women scientists around the world, not only graduate students at Davis,” Cherr said. “She came out of an era where women scientists were second-class scientists. She empowered them to be leaders in the field.”
The Consortium for Women and Research at UC Davis honored her as an outstanding mentor in 2009.
Cale Miller, an ecology graduate student at UC Davis, bonded with Williams as a fellow first-generation college student. Her hope and positively for the future of the oceans, and the world, left a lasting impact.
“She had an ability to not perceive a problem or difficult situation as insurmountable,” Miller said. “Her approach to such things will be a model for how I move forward in my professional and personal life.”