Nancy Guttmann Slack
{{Short description|American plant ecologist, bryologist, and historian of science (1930–2022)}}
Nancy Guttmann Slack (August 12, 1930 – December 21, 2022) was an American plant ecologist, bryologist, and historian of science. She was the president of the American Bryological and Lichenological Society from 2005 to 2007.
Biography
Nancy Guttmann was born in New York City on August 12, 1930. In December 1951 she married Glen A. Slack.{{cite news|title=Nancy Gutmann's Troth; Marriage to Glen A. Slack Will Take Place in December|date=October 25, 1951|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1951/10/25/archives/nancy-guttmanns-troth-marriage-to-glen-a-slack-will-take-place-in.html}} At Cornell University she graduated in June 1952 with B.Sc. in agriculture{{cite news|title=Bachelors of Science in Agriculture|newspaper=The Cornell Daily Sun|volume=68|issue=181|date=6 June 1952|url=https://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/?a=d&d=CDS19520606.2.36&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------}} and in 1954 with M.Sc.{{cite news|title=Class of '52|newspaper=Cornell Alumni Magazine, March/April 2011|page=61}} Her master's thesis is entitled Variation of the Small Cranberries in Eastern North America.{{cite book|author=Slack, Nancy Guttmann|year=1954|title=Variation of the Small Cranberries in Eastern North America|publisher=Cornell University|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qURCAAAAYAAJ}} In the late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s she raised three children and helped her husband's career.{{cite web|title=Glen Slack 1928–2019|website=glenvillefuneralhome.com|url=https://glenvillefuneralhome.com/tribute/details/1135/Glen-Slack/obituary.html}} In 1971 she received her Ph.D. in ecology from the University at Albany, SUNY. Her Ph.D. thesis, entitled Species diversity and community structure in bryophytes,{{cite web|author=Slack, Nancy G.|title=Species diversity and community structures in bryophytes|website=Ph.D. Dissertation, State University of New York at Albany — Department of Biological Sciences|year=1971|url=https://suny-alb.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma990004641510204808&context=L&vid=01SUNY_ALB:01SUNY_ALB&lang=en&search_scope=MyInstitution&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=LibraryCatalog&query=any,contains,slack,%20nancy%20g.&offset=0}} won the Paul C. Lemon Award.{{cite journal|title=People and Places|journal=BioScience|volume=23|issue=9|year=1973|pages=546–548|issn=0006-3568|doi=10.2307/1296485|jstor=1296485}} After receiving her Ph.D. she became an assistant professor of biology at Russell Sage College and retired there in 2002 as professor emerita.{{cite web|title=Glen and Nancy Slack Endowed Award in the Sciences Fund|website=Russell Sage College|date=9 April 2016 |url=https://www.sage.edu/alumnae-i/current-funds/}} After formal retirement from Russell Sage College, she engaged in “writing books and magazine articles, teaching ecology, natural history, and botany, birding, singing in an oratorio society, reading, and doing scientific travel with her husband.” She has done research on bryophytes, ecosystems of the U.S. Northeast, the ecology of peatlands, ecological niche theory, and the history of ecology and botany.
In 2012 Nancy G. Slack was the project director for an investigation resulting in the report Alpine Snowbed communities of Mt. Washington and the monitoring of Populations of Rare Bryophytes and Lichens in relation to Future Climate Change Project.{{cite web|author=Slack, Nancy G.|author2=Capers, Robert|author3=Duckett, Jeffrey|author4=Bell, Allison|author5=Storms, Kate|author6=Greene, Evelyn|author7=Armstrong, Kathie|title=Alpine Snowbed communities of Mt. Washington and the monitoring of Populations of Rare Bryophytes and Lichens in relation to Future Climate Change Project|date=December 2012|url=https://www.watermanfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2012-WF-grant-Slack.pdf}} She received the 2014 Guy Waterman Alpine Steward Award for her lifetime achievement in alpine ecology and conservation work for mountain wilderness in the American Northeast.{{cite web|title=2014 Alpine Steward Award Winner: Dr. Nancy Slack|website=The Waterman Fund|url=https://www.watermanfund.org/annual-alpine-steward-award/award-winners/dr-nancy-slack/}}
Her husband, an outstanding physicist and inventor, died in 2019, leaving his widow, three children, and six grandchildren. The Russell Sage College sponsors the Glen and Nancy Slack Endowed Award in the Sciences Fund for outstanding juniors or seniors in "biology, pre-medicine or biochemistry."
Guttmann Slack died on December 21, 2022, at the age of 92.{{cite web|title=Remembering Dr. Nancy Guttmann Slack|date=January 17, 2023|website=ADK:Adirondack Mountain Club|url=https://adk.org/remembering-dr-ny-guttmann-slack/}}{{cite web |title=Dr. Nancy Guttmann Slack |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/nancy-slack-obituary?id=47146622 |website=Legacy |access-date=26 December 2023}}
References
External links
- {{cite web|title=Impact Show 306 Barbara Brabetz and Dr. Nancy G. Slack|date=June 28, 2012|publisher=mrstprctors|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWPsay_YOTI}}
{{Presidents of the American Bryological and Lichenological Society|state=collapsed}}
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Category:20th-century American botanists
Category:21st-century American botanists
Category:American women botanists
Category:20th-century American women scientists
Category:21st-century American women scientists
Category:Historians of biology
Category:Cornell University alumni
Category:University at Albany, SUNY alumni
Category:Russell Sage College faculty