Rita Horner papers, approximately 1973-2005

Rita Horner was a professor of Oceanography at the University of Washington. Before entering the doctoral program at the University of Washington, Horner completed a Master's degree in botany at the University of Minnesota. She continued on to The University of Oslo to study the taxonomy of marine phytoplankton on a Fullbright grant fellowship (1963-64).

Working with Thomas Saunders English's Polar Science research group, Horner became one of the first women to conduct phytoplankton research at Point Barrow in the Arctic (1965). Following her time at Point Barrow, Horner went on to take a position at the University Alaska, where she eventually resigned to become involved in the Outer Continental Shelf Environment Assessment Program (OCSEAP) in Washington (1974). Horner's research interests include ice algae, biomass chlorophyll, zooplankton, krill, and algobloom biology in the Pacific Northwest. (Source: "Interview of Rita A. Horner by Brian Shoemaker," Ohio State University Knowledge Bank; Accessed: February 2024. https://kb.osu.edu/).