Linda Zimmerman Holland is a research biologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography known for her work examining the evolution of vertebrates.
Education and career
Holland has a B.A. (1962) and an M.A. (1964) from Stanford University. She worked as a research associate at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Clinic, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the period from 1970 until 1998.[1] She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2001.[2] She started as a research biologist at Scripps in 1998, and is emeritus as of 2022.[1]
Linda Holland has described in detail some of the early obstacles she faced as a woman scientist starting out in academe in the 1960s and 1970s, [3]
Research
Holland's early research examined anatomical structures in purple sea urchins,[4][5] and a protein involved in clotting, Von Willebrand factor.[6] She went on to examine reproduction in sea urchins,[7] salps,[8] and amphioxus, known as lancelet.[9] Holland began collecting amphioxus in Tampa, Florida in 1988,[10] which enabled her to use them as a model system to study evolutionary biology.[11][12] Holland was the lead scientist on the project analyzing the genome of amphioxus,[13] and her work revealed reuse and copying of genes by amphioxus.[14] Her research also addressed the evolution of bilaterian animals as in her 2013 Holland et al.[15] publication (see image). In 2017 she wrote a history of the use of amphioxus in biological research.[16]
In 2014 Holland, and her husband Nick Holland, received the A.O. Kovalevsky Medal for their work on amphioxus.[17] This award also includes being named an honorary member of the Saint Petersburg Society of Naturalists.[10]
References
^ ab"Biography". LINDA HOLLAND. Retrieved 2022-04-23.
^ ab"SCRIPPS SCIENTISTS TO BE HONORED WITH PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL BIOLOGY AWARD". US Fed News Service, Including US State News; Washington, D.C. [Washington, D.C]. 22 January 2015.