"Biocomplexity in the Environment: A 21st Century Odyssey" will be the topic April 16 for Rita R. Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), when she will be the 2002 Jill and Ken Iscol Distinguished Environmental Lecturer at Cornell University.Presented by the Cornell Center for the Environment, Colwell's lecture, at 4:30 p.m. in the David L. Call Alumni Auditorium, Kennedy Hall, is open to the public at no charge.

The NSF director also will give opening remarks at a convocation of the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board (CURB) on April 17 at 4 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, and will meet informally with Cornell students and researchers during her two-day visit to the campus.

The annual Iscol Lecture at Cornell recognizes scholarship on the frontiers of scientific inquiry by bringing distinguished policy-makers and scientists to the university to address environmental issues of paramount importance to humankind. Ken Iscol, a 1960 Cornell alumnus, was a leader in the development of the university's Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management Program and founding advisory member of the Center for the Environment at Cornell. Jill Iscol is an activist interested in education, social and economic justice, child and family policy and social change through philanthropy.

When Colwell was appointed the 11th director of the NSF in 1998, she was the first biologist in 25 years – and the first woman ever – to lead the agency. Since then, the marine microbiologist and educator has refocused the core agenda of the NSF, which awards more than $4.5 billion a year in research funding, with major initiatives in nanotechnology, biocomplexity and information technology.

Before reaching the top post at the NSF, Colwell was a member of its governing body, the National Science Board, and president of the Biotechnology Institute at University of Maryland, where she was a professor of microbiology. But she is more widely known for proving that the cholera bacterium dwells for years in a dormant stage in plankton in most of the world's water – rather than being transmitted from person to person – a fact that the medical community resisted accepting for more than two decades.

Her discovery helped explain why cholera epidemics coincide with rising sea temperatures (and has dire implications in times of global climate change), leading to her advocacy for the integrated study of biocomplexity. She defines biocomplexity as an interdisciplinary approach to biodiversity, sustainability and ecosystems study with a heavy emphasis on mathematical modeling. A more immediate, practical application of her cholera discovery is a simple recommendation for water purification in resource-poor countries, such as Bangladesh: Women and their families, she says, can avoid most of the cholera microorganisms associated with the relatively larger plankton by filtering drinking water through their cloth garments.

Colwell earned a B.S. in bacteriology and an M.S. in genetics from Purdue University, as well as a Ph.D. (1961) in oceanography from the University of Washington. She taught at Georgetown University, where she was the first female faculty member in the sciences, and joined the Maryland faculty as a full professor in 1972. Colwell is the author or co-author of 16 books and more than 600 scientific publications, a member of editorial boards for a variety of journals and producer of the award-winning film, "Invisible Seas." She has been awarded honorary degrees from 18 institutions of higher education, is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and has a geological site in Antarctica named for her in recognition of work in the polar regions: Colwell Massif.

One of 16 projects in the NSF's biocomplexity initiative is based at Cornell, in collaboration with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse and Syracuse University. The $3 million grant is supporting a five-year study of how physical, biological and human interactions shape the ecosystems of Lake Ontario's freshwater bays and lagoons.