Nina Stromgren Allen

I was born and grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark and summers were spent at my parent's summerhouse in Northern Zealand, an area that is very much like Cape Cod. We moved to the USA and Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin as a family in 1951 and I received my BS in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Harriet Williams Hopf and Erik Williams were born in Madison and we then moved to Bethesda, Maryland. I received my MS and PhD from the University of Maryland in College Park in Plant Physiology. My advisor, John Terborgh, told me to attend the Botany Course at the MBL in 1969. That was a seminal decision as it opened my eyes to research at a new level as well as introducing me to Woods Hole. I fell in love with the place and have returned every year since that time. It reminded me of my Danish summers -- sand, sea and freedom.

Over the years I worked at the MBL as a graduate student, a postdoc, and later as a teacher and an Investigator. I shared a laboratory for years with my husband, Bob Allen, and our children (by 1972 it was Erik, Elizabeth, Harriet, Wayne and Barbara) enjoyed active summers boating and swimming in Woods Hole. Children's School of Science (CSS) became a big part of our lives. All five children attended CSS as have many of my grandchildren over the years. This summer it was Nina Meyer Mitchell who took two courses at CSS and loved it. I served in the seventies as Science Chair, hiring among others Bettina Dudley, Alan Poole and Julia Child.

The MBL played a huge role in my development as a scientist. Listening to lectures, discussing experiments and learning new methods were all important. The free exchange of ideas was exhilarating. In the seventies, Robert Allen and I founded the first Light Microscopy course at the MBL and it was in that course in 1979-1981 that we together developed Video Microscopy for which we hold the patent and which allowed us and many others to see new things in cells. I was elected and served as a Trustee and on the Executive Committee of the MBL and served on many committees. Along with Judith Grassle and Aimlee Laderman I helped get the still thriving MBL Day Care started as well as serving on many other MBL committees over time.

Woods Hole and the MBL were places to renew my spirit while teaching and researching first at Dartmouth College, then Wake Forest University and finally and still, North Carolina State University. It was and is a place for intellectual growth and excitement as well as a place to just be. It is the place where my children and grandchildren gather and still enjoy the beauty of sea and sky as well as old friends and family.