María de los Ángeles Alvariño González
Spanish fishery research biologist and oceanographer (1916-2005)
María de los Ángeles Alvariño González (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈɾia ðe los ˈaŋxeles alβaˈɾiɲo ɣonˈθaleθ], October 3, 1916 – May 29, 2005), known as Ángeles Alvariño, was a Spanish fishery research biologist and oceanographer globally recognized as an authority in plankton biology. She was the first woman ever appointed as scientist aboard any British or Spanish exploration ship. She discovered 22 new species of marine animals and published over a hundred scientific books, essays, and articles. In her late career she studied the history of early marine scientific exploration.
Early days
María de los Ángeles Alvariño Gonzalez was born in Serantes (Ferrol, Galicia), Spain on October 3, 1916, the daughter of Antonio Alvariño Grimaldos, a physician, and Maria del Carmen Gonzales Diaz-Saavedra de Alvariño. From an early age she showed an interest in the natural sciences and read her father's book on zoology. She attended the lycée Concepcion Arenal in Ferrol and in 1931 attended the University of Santiago de Compostela where she graduated summa cum laude in 1933. The titles of her dissertations were "Social Insects" and "Women in Don Quixote".
"Creativity and imagination are the basic ingredients for the scientists, as in the arts, because science is an art…" she later explained when she was asked about her diverse interests.
In 1934, she was admitted at the Complutense University of Madrid to study Natural Sciences, but had to interrupt her studies as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War.
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This entry incorporates text from “María de los Ángeles Alvariño González” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.