In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

80 Izzie–as she was known–was born in Hna, Maui, on June 20, 1919, to Annie Chung and Loo Yuen Aiona. When she was a little girl, her family moved to their home in the McCully district of Honolulu, returning often to Maui to spend time in Wailuku and Lahaina, where her mother was raised. She graduated from the Kamehameha Schools in 1937 with the first class of girls attending seventh to twelveth grade at the new campus “on the hill” at Kaplama Heights. She went directly to the University of Hawai‘i (UH) and completed a BA in botany in 1941. There she met Don Abbott, her husband-to-be, since seating charts placed Abbott next to Aiona in class after class. Just one year later, in 1942, she earned a Master of Science degree at the University of Michigan. Izzie and Don married in Honolulu and then moved to Berkeley, California, to continue their studies just as America entered World War II. Don joined the Army while Izzie put her doctoral pursuit on hold and supported the war effort by monitoring air traffic. After the war, she and Don returned to Berkeley to continue their studies. In 1950, Izzie completed her doctorate in botany at the University of California at Berkeley, making her the first Kamehameha Schools graduate to earn a doctoral degree, and the first Hawaiian to be awarded one in science. Don Abbott was offered an assistant professorship at Stanford University in 1952, but women were rarely considered for academic posts at the time, so Izzie raised their daughter, Annie, and continued her research on marine algae, eventually taking a lecturer position in 1960 at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California. After having either authored or updated all of the definitive books on the marine algae of California and writing dozens of original research papers, Izzie was promoted directly to full professor at Stanford in 1972. She thus earned the distinction of being the first woman to reach that rank in the biological sciences at Stanford University. During her extensive career , she authored more than 150 publications and discovered over 200 new species of limu, or marine algae. Known as the First Lady of Limu, she was, and still is, considered the world’s leading expert in the field. She and Don both retired from Stanford in 1982 and moved back to Honolulu, where UH offered her an endowed chair and then an emerita position in botany. Though retired (again) from teaching and graduate advising, at ninety years Reflection: Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona Abbott With Puakea Nogelmeier Reflection | 81 of age she was actively involved in research at both UH and the Bishop Museum , working from home rather than making daily runs to her two offices. However, after her ninety-first birthday, even this became difficult, so Izzie spent much of her time with her daughter, friends, former students, and caretakers . Reflective about the long view she’d enjoyed, she welcomed the chance to offer the “post-word” for I Ulu I Ke Kumu. She assembled notes and wrote down some thoughts, but most of the following is excerpted from a taped conversation at her home on Wa‘a Street in East Honolulu in October 2010, just a few weeks before she passed away. This was Izzie’s last interview. Isabella Abbott I have sorely enjoyed being on the mainland, but then being here in Hawai‘i has been deeply rewarding as well. To end my life this way seems about the nicest thing: I wanted to be in the position to help once again. I’ve been able to encourage bright young people, many of them Hawaiian, to make their way into the academic and the professional world. There’s much that can be said, and done, about finding your way. Your stay “at home” may be fraught with problems of various kinds as you work, but where does that not happen? These problems will be unexpected because you had your eye on the ball of professional success, just waiting to be proud of it so you can go on with your life. But what can we, as established academics, do to make it easier for you? What I’m trying to say, without saying it, is, “We’ll do this for you.” We want to help you, you know, find friends, find jobs, find housing, find…whatever. You have to not be afraid to ask for help...

Share