Mary Sears

Who was Mary Sears?

Mary Sears was a Commander in the United States Naval Reserve and a leading oceanographer. Throughout her career, she was associated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Few members of the staff have been more closely involved in the development of WHOI than was Sears. She was present for many of the early discussions organizing the Institution and acquiring its first ships, the 142-foot ketch Atlantis and 40-foot coastal vessel Asterias, and its first laboratory, later named the Bigelow Laboratory.

Following mostly summer appointments in the 1930s, she served on the scientific staff as a planktonologist from 1940 to 1963, when a new department structure was organized under Director Paul Fye and she was named a Senior Scientist in the Biology Department, a position she held until her retirement in 1970. She was named a Scientist Emeritus in 1978.

Sears was also a long-time Member of the Corporation, serving as Clerk of the Corporation from 1947 to 1973 and as Deputy Clerk from 1973 to 1975. She was named an Honorary Trustee and Honorary Member in 1976, rarely missing a Trustee/Corporation meeting.