The Fifty Year Club presented the 2019 Io Triumphe award to Dr. Gretchen North, the John W. McMenamin Endowed Chair in Biology. The Io Triumphe Award is bestowed annually in recognition of faculty, administrators, or staff who have demonstrated extraordinary loyalty to the College and the principles for which Oxy stands.
Dr. North’s research focuses on plant physiological ecology, with an emphasis on the water relations of arid-land plants and plants in the rainforest canopy; she also investigates cellular and subcellular mechanisms of plant water uptake and transport. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. She received the Loftsgordon Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008, the Graham L. Sterling Memorial Award for distinguished teaching, service and professional achievement in 2012, and the Linda and Tod White ’59 Teaching Prize in 2015. Dr. North also teaches in the California Environment Semester, co-directs the COSMOS program, and is a member of the Faculty Institutional Advancement Committee.