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Who was María de los Ángeles Alvariño González? Facts You Need to Know

María de los Ángeles Alvariño González Wiki – María de los Ángeles Alvariño González Biography

María de Los Ángeles Alvariño González was a pioneering Spanish biologist and oceanographer who was an authority on plankton biology. She is being honored with a google doodle on October 3, 2021, on what would have been his 105th birthday. Ángeles Alvariño passed away on May 29, 2005, in La Jolla, California.

“Today’s Doodle celebrates the 105th birthday of the Spanish-American professor and marine research biologist Dr. María de los Ángeles Alvariño González, considered one of the most important Spanish scientists of all time”, Google says on his blog Doodle. “In 1953, the British Council awarded Ángeles Alvariño a scholarship that made her the first woman to work as a scientist aboard a British research vessel.”

Google added: “After several expeditions, she expanded her studies in the United States, where she retired as one of the world’s most prestigious marine biologists in 1987.”

María de los Ángeles Alvariño González was born on October 3, 1916 in Ferrol, Spain

María de los Ángeles Alvariño González was born on October 3, 1916 in Serantes, a “small coastal town in the north of the Galician coast of Spain” that is part of the city of Ferrol, Spain, according to the Google Doodle blog page. She was the daughter of Dr. Antonio Alvariño Grimaldos, who practiced medicine, and María del Carmen González Díaz-Saavedra, according to “Notable Hispanic American Women: Book II” by Gale Research.

According to the biography, Ángeles Alvariño was interested in science from a very young age and read her father’s research books. the The Smithsonian ocean page wrote, “Alvariño grew up wanting to be a doctor like his father, an ambition that he discouraged.”

He attended Concepción Arenal in Ferrol and graduated from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1933. He studied various subjects and said during an interview: “Creativity and imagination are the basic ingredients for the scientist, as in the arts, because science it’s an art. , ” according to Notable Biographies.

He studied Natural Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, but his work there was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. She married Eugenio Leira Manso in 1940 and they later had a daughter, María de los Ángeles Leira Alvariño, who would become an architect in the United States, according to a biography of the Galician Ministry of Culture. He completed his studies at the University of Madrid in 1941, after the Civil War.

Ángeles Alvariño was a professor and researcher, but the law prohibited her from boarding ships of the Spanish Navy

After completing her studies in Natural Sciences in Madrid, she and her husband returned to their hometown of Ferrol where she became a teacher, teaching classes in biology, zoology, botany and geology, according to the Galician Ministry of Culture. His family returned to Madrid in 1948 so that she could work as a researcher with him. Department of Marine Fisheries, but his career was hampered by an outdated law.

According to the Smithsonian, “At that time, there was still a law on the books that prohibited women from boarding the ships of the Spanish Navy. If that sounds absurd and archaic, it’s because it was, even decades and decades ago. The law dated from the 1700s, when Carlos III ruled Spain and most people did not have interior plumbing. But the research vessels of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography were Navy ships. And the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, officially, did not admit women ”.

According to the Google Doodle blog, “Ángeles Alvariño’s love of natural history began with her father’s library and deepened as he devoted himself to researching coastal oceanography. Although the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) only accepted men at that time, Ángeles Alvariño’s university work impressed the organization that appointed her as a marine biologist in 1952 ”. Later he moved to Great Britain to continue his research there.

Ángeles Alvariño received a Fulbright scholarship and moved to the United States in 1956 to study on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.


Ángeles Alvariño, the great Galician oceanographerAngeles Alvariño, the woman who gives its name to the ship that has spent weeks on the coast of Tenerife looking for the girls, Anna and Olivia, was born in 1916 in a town in Ferrol, Galicia.2021-06-17T15: 16: 03Z

Ángeles Alvariño received a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her and her family to move to the United States to continue her research, according to Notable Biographies. She worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod in Massachusetts alongside her fellow zooplankton researcher, Dr. Mary Sears, who was president of the US Oceanographic Congress, according to the biography.

After his work there, he transferred to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California at the University of San Diego, according to the Smithsonian. Kalila Morsink wrote in her article about Ángeles Alvariño on the museum’s website: “She discovered which species of zooplankton could act as indicators of water temperature and studied the distribution of plankton in the oceans and how they are affected by ocean currents. , pollution and ship movements “.

Morsink added: “After leaving Scripps, he did research in Antarctica, taught in Mexico and held positions in a multitude of institutions, from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to the University of San Diego. He didn’t retire until he was 71, and even after he retired, he continued on research trips. ”

María de los Ángeles Alvariño González discovered 22 new species of marine biology during her career and published more than 100 books and articles

According to the Google Doodle blog, “In addition to the rigorous research of Ángeles Alvariño, including the discovery of 22 new species of zooplankton and the publication of more than 100 scientific articles, he held chairs in Brazil, the United States and Mexico.”

It has two species of plankton named after it, the Aidanosagitta alvarinoae, a chaetognath, and the Lizzia alvarinoae, a hydromedusa. The Smithsonian writes: “Throughout his life, Alvariño discovered 22 new species of plankton. Their names, as Latin names often have, have stories behind them, ranging from the siphonophore Lensia eugenioi, the namesake of Alvariño’s husband Eugenio, to the arrow worm Pseudosagitta scrippsae, which shares its name with the Californian Oceanographic Institution for the who worked for more than a decade. ”

The site adds: “As it is frowned upon in the scientific world, Alvariño did not name a single of the species she discovered as herself. It is up to later scientists to name Aidanosagitta alvarinoae and Lizzia alvarinoae in his honor. ”

Ángeles Alvariño, who died in 2005, is recognized as the namesake of a ship from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography


Open Day at the Ángeles Alvariño Oceanographic VesselNews from RTVE in Cantabria on the occasion of the Open Doors Days of the Oceanographic Vessel Ángeles Alvariño of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) of Santander.2014-06-19T00: 12: 25Z

María de los Ángeles Alvariño González died on May 29, 2005 in La Jolla, California. According to the Smithsonian, “he had just finished writing a book on an oceanographic expedition in the late 1700s when he died in 2005.

In 2012, a research vessel from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography was launched and was named “Ángeles Alvariño” in her honor. The ship was launched from the port of Vigo, Spain, with her daughter participating in the ceremony, according to the IEO.

Google added on its Doodle blog, “Today, Ángeles Alvariño is the only Spanish scientist out of 1,000 in the ‘Encyclopedia of World Scientists’. Happy birthday, Dra. María de los Ángeles Alvariño González!

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