Sweeney, Beatrice M.

Biography

Beatrice Marcy Sweeney was born August 11, 1914 in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her Bachelor's from Smith College in 1936 and her PhD from Radcliffe College in 1942. After relocating to California, she worked at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography as a research biologist. She married Paul Lee in 1961. In 1969 she returned to California to teach at UCSB. She is known for her research in marine biology, particularly on phytoplankton. She died on July 17, 1989.

For more information, see the Office of Public Information Biographical Files, UArch 11.

Biography / Administrative History

Beatrice M. Sweeney was a plant physiologist by training who specialized in circadian rhythms, or biological clocks, in marine organisms. She was a professor of biology at UCSB from 1969 until her death in 1989. Her area of expertise was unicellular organisms and she spent a number of years trying to discover the mechanism that caused bioluminescence in the genus Gonyaulax, a kind of plankton. She published a short book on the subject of rhythmicity called Rhythmic Phenomena in Plants in 1969.

At UCSB she was also assistant provost of the College of Creative Studies and she taught several popular courses. Having raised four children while conducting research and teaching, she appreciated opportunities she received for employment and advancement but was also familiar with the struggles in the still male-dominated academic world of the 1970s. She was named Chair of the UCSB Committee on the Status of Women which looked at policy issues on campus, such as the disparity in funding men's and women's athletics. Sweeney passed away in unexpectedly 1989 at the age of 75 while still actively pursuing her research.