{"id":190741,"date":"2025-07-31T08:10:57","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T12:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/?p=190741"},"modified":"2025-07-31T08:10:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T12:10:57","slug":"a-career-of-consequence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/publications\/aboard-gso\/a-career-of-consequence\/","title":{"rendered":"A Career of Consequence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over five decades, Margaret Leinen has personified scientific scholarship, service and leadership.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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Apply site-wide<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

By Ellen Liberman<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Earth awaits discovery.
Deep mysteries
To be revealed in time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 17 syllables, <\/em><\/strong>Margaret Leinen, Ph.D. \u201980, stunned the room. In 2002, a consortium of scientists had gathered in Nagasaki to celebrate the launch of the Chikyu,<\/em> the first Japanese ocean drill ship to join an international research effort to collect sediment samples from the deepest parts the planet. Leinen, as the head of the National Science Foundation\u2019s geosciences directorate, had decided to commemorate the occasion with the spare elegance of a haiku. Leinen wove the name of the vessel and the program Chikyu Hakken<\/em> (earth discovery) into the poem\u2014and delivered it in Japanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Yoder, then-NSF division director of ocean ociences and Leinen\u2019s former URI Graduate School of Oceanography colleague, recalls a sea of dark business suits and an ambiance as formal as the milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just blew them away that she would show up with a haiku related to ocean drilling. The looks on their faces,\u201d Yoder says. \u201cIt was such a respectful thing to do, and to me, an example of how she would prepare for these things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After more than five decades of meticulous preparation in service to scientific scholarship, service and management, Margaret S. Leinen retired in May. She caps her distinguished career as director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, where she also served as vice chancellor for marine sciences and dean of the School of Marine Sciences. When she came to Scripps in 2013, she thought she would put in 10 years, but stayed to shepherd the school through a major expansion of its undergraduate program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt that I had to finish it up,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been in university administration for 35 years. And I think it\u2019s time for new blood. I look at the younger administrators around me, and I think they\u2019ve got wonderful ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an administrator, she also served as vice provost for marine and environmental initiatives and executive director of Florida Atlantic University\u2019s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and as URI\u2019s vice provost for marine and environmental programs, interim dean of the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, and the first woman dean of GSO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whether she was testifying at the United Nations Ocean Conference, working with global leaders at strategic meetings, or delivering a keynote address at the AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting, Leinen\u2019s reputation as an authority in oceanography would often put her on an international stage and in the spotlight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Leinen has been a major force in shaping ocean policy in the U.S. and worldwide. She managed a $700 million budget as assistant director for geoscience at the National Science Foundation, served as a U.S. State Department ocean science envoy and co-chaired the U.N.\u2019s Decade of Ocean Science advisory board. Leinen also led the Climate Response Fund and was chief science officer at a climate tech startup. Her leadership includes roles in major scientific organizations, board positions in ocean and science advocacy groups, and numerous honors, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leinen has been at the forefront of scientific, social, cultural, and institutional changes\u2014from our understanding of the historical ocean, to gender shifts in science, and to major academic program transitions at some of the nation\u2019s most prestigious oceanography schools. In the midst of these seismic developments, Leinen established a reputation as a thoughtful, unflappable, and analytical scientist, leader, colleague, and mentor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhenever a problem or issue came that was controversial and complicated, Margaret was able to cut through the chaff, get to the critical part and develop good, sensible solutions with people,\u201d says former GSO Dean Robert Duce, who tapped Leinen to be associate dean of research when he replaced Dean John Knauss in 1987. \u201cI\u2019ve never known anybody who has that ability as well as she does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the Day<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Leinen grew up in landlocked Joliet, Illinois. She had only seen the ocean once, from afar, when her family attended the 1963 World\u2019s Fair in New York City. She entered the University of Illinois as a chemistry major taking classes in cavernous lecture halls, but fell in love with geology on a rainy November field trip to a strip mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe faculty had brought a thermos of coffee for us. We\u2019d be sitting on a rock with a faculty member drinking coffee. They talked to us like we were real people and I said, \u2018Hey, this is what I want for science, not this crazy chemistry experience.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was fascinated by the big earth processes of volcanoes and earthquakes, but eventually decided that her interests lay at the bottom of the ocean, where the sediment reveals the history of an ancient earth. In 1975, she earned a master\u2019s degree in geological oceanography from Oregon State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea that I could look at these sediments and say, \u2018Here\u2019s what the ocean looked like 30 million years ago\u2019\u2014I loved that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Leinen began her studies, the ranks of women scientists were thin and women at sea were a novelty. As a chemistry undergraduate, she was one of only five females in classes of 400. The males had assigned seats, but the females were rotated to give the men experience in sitting next to a woman. Research ships lacked bathrooms for women, and the culture could be challenging. During one of her first cruises, Leinen and her fellow graduate student Kathryn Sullivan, the geologist, oceanographer, and former astronaut, were headed to the ship\u2019s fantail to prepare the gear for dredging and coring, when the ship\u2019s bosun stopped them at the lab\u2019s threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe pushed us back to the doorway drew a line with chalk and said, \u2018No women behind this line, because you could distract people and cause an accident.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another set of cruises was to conclude ashore with a big party at a hotel. The ship captain\u2019s wife asked Leinen and Sullivan if they had packed skirts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe looked at each other and said, \u2018Yes, we have a skirt for the port stops.\u2019 And she said, \u2018Oh good, because we want you to serve the hors d\u2019oeuvres at the party.\u2019\u201d (They didn\u2019t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMuch later on, that bosun apologized,\u201d Leinen says. \u201cBut sometimes things don\u2019t change. In 2021, when I was selected to be the co-chair of the Decade Advisory Board, somebody told me that I was only selected because I was a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leinen countered by striving for excellence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI made sure that all my grades and my research were the best,\u201d she says. \u201cThe men were the darlings of the lab, so you kept your head down and tried to outperform them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The GSO campus in summer, 1980. R\/V Endeavor,<\/em> pre-refit, is in the foreground.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Leinen spent half of her career at URI. When she arrived in 1975 to pursue her Ph.D., the graduate program was only a decade old. But the GSO campus was undergoing a rapid expansion in those years: the Marine Ecosystem Research Laboratory opened; the research vessel Endeavor <\/em>arrived; and the Norman D. Watkins Laboratory, Corless Auditorium and Marine Resources Building were completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After earning her Ph.D. in 1980, Leinen began to support her research with grant money. It was a productive time; she published widely on paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, and biogeochemical cycles, carbon cycling, and their relationships to the climate history of the oceans. She accrued 24 research cruises. As a member of the Joint Global Ocean Flux program, she co-led seven in the equatorial Pacific. Her favorite was the Alvin <\/em>dive to the Juan de Fuca spreading centers. She had been studying the sedimentary record of those hydrothermal vents since the 1970s. In 1984, she got the opportunity to descend 65-hundred feet in the submersible to observe and sample them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Above: the human-occupied vehicle (HOV), Alvin<\/em>. Right: a hydrothermal vent found on the floor of the Pacific.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI had spent my entire life studying the ocean and now I was actually able to look into it, not just at the top of it, but into it,\u201d she says \u201cWe were the first people to lay eyes on those vents. And it became clear that there was much more diversity of life around these deep-sea vents. It was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adept Leader in Academia<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Leinen during her days as a GSO administrator.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Leinen ascended within GSO\u2014from research staff to faculty member to associate dean of research. When Duce left to take a position at Texas A&M University in 1990, Leinen was selected after an international search. During her tenure as \u201cDean of the Deep,\u201d GSO rose in the National Academy of Sciences rankings of oceanography programs to fifth in the nation, and increased its extramural funding by 50 percent. She expanded the size of the research faculty and developed partnerships with groups inside and outside of the university. For the first time, GSO developed a coastal management plan with the state and began collaborating with the Coastal Institute. She helped to develop GSO\u2019s first undergraduate programs, a \u201cblue master\u2019s\u201d program with the business school, and a master plan for marine and environmental programs university-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoder says that integrating GSO into URI\u2019s undergraduate programs showcased Leinen\u2019s skills as problem solver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[President Robert L. Carothers] was pressuring GSO to transition from a research and graduate education institution to a standard faculty department. That caused tension in the faculty, and Margaret was trapped in the middle. But she was able to convince [Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs M. Beverly Swan] to adjust the accounting model to include federal grant support. That was one of the ways that she was successful in trying to keep GSO\u2019s identity pretty much the way it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Leinen oversaw sweeping program, funding, and faculty changes at Scripps. Over her 13 years, she presided over a major diversity and equity initiative, the faculty increased by 33 percent, undergraduate enrollment nearly doubled, and new ocean, atmosphere and interdisciplinary environmental systems majors were created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of the Pacific from Scripps\u2019 Munk Laboratory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did it without changing the teaching requirement,\u201d she says. \u201cI had practice at URI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the Scripps endowment tripled, and the funding sources diversified among federal, state and private donors. Leinen forged stronger relationships with government officials \u201cto really tell them what Scripps is doing for them and for their constituency\u2014our work on sea level, algal blooms, wildfires, atmospheric rivers and the big weather patterns. We\u2019re so proud of the institution. It\u2019s exciting to tell people how much is going on and how impactful it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her longtime colleagues say that Leinen\u2019s encyclopedia of accomplishments, is due, in part, to her extraordinary facility with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe essentially helped to change the culture, and as we can see in the current political landscape, culture change is hard,\u201d says Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Professor and faculty equity advisor Lihini Aluwihare. \u201cHer super-power is making people feel like they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humanity in the Sciences<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Duce marvels at the 25-year-old bottle of classic Macallan scotch Leinen intended to gift him as he took over the AGU\u2019s presidency at the annual meeting in Paris. The bottle broke when the bag it was in fell off the security conveyor belt at the airport. Leinen scoured Paris for a replacement, but had to settle for another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019d think I would be giving her a gift because her term was up. No, she was giving me a gift because my term was beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Murray, Deputy Director at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who came to GSO to study with Leinen as a postdoctoral fellow recalls the moment that crystallized her value as mentor. The pair had submitted a proposal to the NSF, and \u201cit just got blasted,\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe said, \u2018You get reviewed like this and you wonder why we even do this job.\u2019 It\u2019s one thing for a snot-nosed recent Ph.D. like me to get crappy reviews. But for an established scientist to articulate that in the presence of someone she\u2019s supervising, it showed me that it\u2019s okay to take a hit to the chin, pick up and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her former NSF boss Rita Colwell praised Leinen\u2019s ability to keep a firm grip on the science as she gained community trust during the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon<\/em> oil spill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first meeting had a big turn-out, and there was suspicion. They were facing contaminated fish, beaches washed with oil, and toxic fumes. Would these funds actually solve problems? Or was it going to be ethereal research?\u201d she says. \u201cAs the work progressed, the community\u2019s confidence was clear. Those town halls continued, but they were friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In retirement, <\/em><\/strong>Leinen will continue to administer her grants, to research and advocate for the ocean. More hiking and cooking international fare are also on the agenda. She\u2019ll miss being among the first to hear about the next thrilling discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe faculty, the researchers, the postdocs and the graduate students\u2014everybody wants you to know about their research because they\u2019re very proud of it. There\u2019s this constant stream of people telling you the most wonderful science and that hasn\u2019t even been published yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She leaves academia with a record of scientific advances, transformational leadership, successful mentees, and mementos\u2014like the piece of NSF stationary with the haiku. Leinen knew she\u2019d be required to toast the Chikyu <\/em>and saw an opportunity to put her love of Japanese literature to good use. She enlisted her Japanese counterpart, Asahiko Taira, for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had done something in English, and he said, \u2018Let\u2019s turn it into Japanese.\u2019 We translated my idea, but he made it so much better. He wrote it out in Japanese so that I could show the Japanese colleagues the haiku in Japanese. Then he phonetically wrote it, so I could say it in Japanese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like so many Margaret Leinen stories, it\u2019s about collaboration, humility, the element of surprise, and, she says \u201cit was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ellen Liberman Earth awaits discovery.Deep mysteriesTo be revealed in time. In 17 syllables, Margaret Leinen, Ph.D. \u201980, stunned the room. In 2002, a consortium of scientists had gathered in Nagasaki to celebrate the launch of the Chikyu, the first Japanese ocean drill ship to join an international research effort to collect sediment samples from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,1987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aboard-gso","category-publications"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190741"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190760,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190741\/revisions\/190760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}