UH building now bears name of Maui-born ethnobotany professor
The Life Sciences Building at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa has been renamed after the late Isabella Aiona Abbott, a Maui-born Native Hawaiian ethnobotany professor emerita whose work earned her the nickname the “First Lady of Limu.”
The UH Board of Regents voted unanimously on Jan. 19 to approve the renaming of the state-of-the-art building following a groundswell of support from the campus community, UH said in a news release earlier this month.
The three-story, 70,000-square-foot facility, which opened for instruction in fall 2020, will now be known as the Isabella Aiona Abbott Life Sciences Building.
“It’s about the opportunity for us to use these kinds of recognitions to reflect not only on the legacy but who do we want to be as a community,” UH Board of Regents Vice Chairperson Alapaki Nahale-a said. “I was really moved not just by the words but the way and the beautiful spirit behind it. The beginning of the 2023, I just feel like this is the type of energy that our system can capitalize on and use to be the aspirational institution we need to be for Hawai‘i.”
The renaming effort began as a grassroots campaign about six years ago. More than 3,000 people signed a petition, and more than 100 people submitted testimony in support.
“Our mom, Tutu and dear friend is undoubtedly smiling her huge and warming smile at this tremendous honor. … May Dr. Abbott’s legacy of selfless service to one another, countless mentorships, and her tireless pursuits in marine botany (limu) combined with the intentional recognition of deeply rooted Hawaiian traditions remain an example and a covering for this building and all who pass through its doors,” Annie Abbott Foerster, Abbott’s daughter, wrote to the Board of Regents.
Abbott graduated from Kamehameha Schools and earned her undergraduate degree in botany from UH-Manoa. She earned her master’s degree in botany from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in botany from the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the first Kanaka Maoli woman to earn a Ph.D. in science, according to UH.
She then worked as a research associate and lecturer at the University of Stanford, studying marine algae on the California coast. Upon her promotion from lecturer to full professor, she became the first woman and the first person of color to become a full professor of biology at Stanford. Abbott became the leading marine botanist of the Pacific, discovering more than 200 algae, which earned her the nickname “First Lady of Limu.”
She and her husband Donald Putnam Abbott retired from Stanford and moved back to the islands in 1992, where she joined the faculty at UH-Manoa and served as the G.P. Wilder professor of botany and helped establish the school’s ethnobotany program, teaching thousands of students throughout the years.
Over her career, she published eight books and more than 150 research papers and technical reports, receiving honors that included the Darbaker Prize from the Botanical Society of America in 1969, the Charles Reed Bishop Medal in 1993 and the National Academy of Sciences Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal for excellence in published research on algae in 1997. She was named a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i and received a lifetime achievement award from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources for her studies of coral reefs.
Abbott died in 2010 at the age of 91.
“She faced numerous barriers to her career advancement but she not only smashed them, she also worked to open pathways for other Native Hawaiian scientists,” Department of Oceanography and Hawai‘i Sea Grant Associate Professor Rosie Alegado told the Board of Regents. “Most importantly, Izzie’s unparalleled achievements were not made in spite of her upbringing and cultural heritage but because of them.”
In 1986, Abbott was a co-author of the seminal “Ka‘u Hawaiian Task Force Report,” along with 18 other Kanaka Maoli faculty and staff. The task force was charged with reviewing the direction and commitment of the UH system to traditional Hawaiian culture and to Hawaiians; identifying programs or obstacles which deter the commitment to Hawaiian culture and to the education of Hawaiians; and to recommend solutions that the university can undertake to overcome these problems and obstacles.
“This is a way that we can continue to increase Native Hawaiian student representation in the STEM fields … the opportunity for students to see someone who looks like them, talks like them and comes from a similar place that they do — somebody who has achieved academic success at the highest levels,” Native Hawaiian Student Services Director Willy Kauai said. “The Life Sciences Building being named after Dr. Isabella Abbott is a really good step that the university took to address issues of representation.”