Mimi A. R. Koehl is an American

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology clas ...

, biomechanist, and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

in the Department of Integrative Biology at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and head of the Koehl Lab. She is a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

from the class of 1990

Early life and education

Koehl grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her father was a physics professor, from whom she learned math, and her mother was an artist who sold portrait paintings. Koehl has an older brother. As a child, she helped her father in his workshop, where she learned how to use tools. M. A. R. Koehl enrolled at

Gettysburg College Gettysburg College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1832, the campus is adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. Gettysburg College has about ...

as an art major, and switched to biology after taking a biology class as part of her degree requirements. She graduated from

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

, with a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

. After graduation she work at

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

as a lab technician for a summer. She began her studies at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

in the fall of 1970, where she studied under Stephen A. Wainwright and graduated with a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow (1976-1977) at Friday Harbor Laboratories,

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, where she studied with Richard R. Strathmann, and at

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

, where she studied with

John Currey John Moore Currey (October 4, 1814 – December 18, 1912) was the eighth Chief Justice of California, and candidate for Governor of California in 1859. Biography John Currey was born in Westchester County, New York, in 1814, and died in Dixon, ...

. She was diagnosed with dyslexia in her mid-forties, and has talked about how it shaped the way she sees the world, and how it influenced her love for fluid mechanics and biology.

Research

Koehl broadly studies how body structure and physical environment affect an organism's mechanical function in nature, looking across many levels of biological organization. Scientific techniques utilized in Koehl's laboratory range from

fluid In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that may continuously motion, move and Deformation (physics), deform (''flow'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are M ...

and

solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...

mechanics to ecological

quadrat A quadrat is a frame used in ecology, geography, and biology to isolate a standard unit of area for study of the distribution of an item over a large area. Quadrats typically occupy an area of 0.25 m2 and are traditionally square, but modern quad ...

sampling. She has studied how marine larvae swim and feed in turbulent flows, and how organisms like kelp, seagrass and coral use currents and waves. Additionally, she has studied the role of hair-bearing appendages in swimming organisms, to both understand their role in propulsion and sensing.

Selected publications

*Koehl, M.A.R. and M.G. Hadfield. 2004. "Soluble settlement cue in slowly-moving water within coral reefs induces larval adhesion to surfaces". ''J. Mar. Systems'' *Koehl, M.A.R. 2004. "Biomechanics of microscopic appendages: Functional shifts caused by changes in speed". ''J. Biomech''. 37:789-795. *Koehl, M.A.R. 2003. "Physical modelling in biomechanics". ''Phil Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond''. B 358:1589–1596. *Koehl, M.A.R., J.R. Koseff, J.P. Crimaldi, M.G. McCay, T. Cooper, M.B. Wiley, and P.A. Moore. 2001. "Lobster sniffing: Antennule design and hydrodynamic filtering of information in an odor plume". ''Science'' 294:1948–1951 *Koehl, M.A.R., K.J. Quillin, and C. Pell. 2000. "Mechanical design of fiber-wound hydraulic skeletons: The stiffening and straightening of embryonic notochords". ''Am. Zool''. 40:28-41. *Koehl, M.A.R.. "The Fluid Mechanics of Arthropod Sniffing in Turbulent Odor Plumes", ''Chemical Senses'' 2006 31(2):93-105 *Koehl, M.A.R.. "A Life Outside". Annu. Rev. Mar. Sci. 2024. 16: 17.1–17.23

Awards and honors

Th
Society of Integrative and Comparative BiologyDivision of Comparative Biomechanics
has named the annual best student oral presentation the "Mimi A.R. Koehl and Steven Wainwright Award

. * Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

* Borelli Award,

American Society of Biomechanics The American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) is a scholarly society that focuses on biomechanics across a variety of academic fields. It was founded in 1977 by a group of scientists and clinicians. The ASB holds an annual conference as an arena to d ...

* 1990

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

* Presidential Young Investigator Award,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

Fellowship * Fellow,

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

Visiting Scholar * Rachel Carson Lecture,

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

, 2006 * John Martin Award,

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), formerly known as the Limnological Society of America and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, is a scientific society established in 1936 with the goal of advan ...

Honorary Degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

, Doctor of Science,

Bates College Bates College () is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian ...

* Muybridge Award,

International Society of Biomechanics The International Society of Biomechanics, commonly known as the ISB, is a society dedicated to promoting biomechanics in its various forms. It promotes the study of all areas of biomechanics at the international level, although special emphasis ...

* The Graduate School Distinguished Alumni Award Duke University * American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics Fellowship, 2018

Outreach

She appeared on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Nova in the February 1980 episode "Living Machines". Her research has been featured extensively in the media, including

Science News ''Science News'' (''SN'') is an American monthly magazine devoted to articles about new scientific and technical developments, typically gleaned from recent scientific and technical journals. The periodical has been described as having a scop ...

Discover Magazine ''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It is currently owned by LabX Media Group. History Founding ''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' magazine e ...

, Science,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

Duke Magazine Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power indu ...

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She has been featured and profiled in many other publications, including the series of children's book "Women's Adventures in Science", published by the

, the book "Agassiz’s Legacy: Scientists’ Reflections on the Value of Field Experience", written by Elizabeth Gladfelter, the book "Notable Women Scientists in the Life Sciences''"'' by Shearer and Shearer, where she appears on the cover, and "Gifted Woman" by Schatz. She was also profiled in the Berkeleyan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koehl, M.A.R. Living people University of California, Berkeley faculty Gettysburg College alumni Duke University alumni MacArthur Fellows American marine biologists University of Washington alumni Alumni of the University of York Year of birth missing (living people) Santa Fe Institute people American women biologists 21st-century American women