Bruce Brownawell

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death of former MIT-WHOI Joint Program Student Bruce Brownawell on February 2, 2025, of complications from ALS.   He was 67.

After studying the impact of colloids on PCBs in the sediments near New Bedford with John Farrington at WHOI and Phil Gschwend at MIT (co-advisors for Bruce’s Ph. D.), Bruce completed a postdoc with John Westall in the Chemistry Department at Oregon State University and spent the rest of his career as a faculty member at Stony Brook University, in what was first called MSRC, and then became the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS).  Bruce had a long and highly successful (~34-year) career in SoMAS during which he worked tirelessly on the study of diverse organic contaminants (including pesticides, industrial compounds, surfactants, pharmaceuticals and diverse emerging contaminants) in coastal and estuarine environments, examining both their fate and environmental impacts.  Bruce’s colleagues and students greatly appreciated his deep intellect and the generosity with which he shared his ideas, and the outsized role he played in helping to establish SoMAS as a true center of excellence in marine biogeochemistry.  Bruce played an enormous role in enthusiastically mentoring many graduate students, most of whom went on to highly successful careers of their own and whose loyalty to Bruce is most notable and poignant at this time.

Bruce married Anne McElroy, another Joint Program student in 1991, and together they raised two daughters, Emily and Sarah Brownawell.  Their old home on Shore Road (built by one of the Setauket ship builders in the early 1800s) was often filled with friends who attended their epic Halloween parties (at which Bruce served as master of ceremonies clad in his vampire suit) and large Thanksgiving gatherings (at which those who couldn’t get home found a place at their table). Bruce was an avid gardener, home brewer, softball player and fisherman. After retiring from their academic positions at SoMAS, Bruce and Anne moved to the North Fork of Long Island purchasing The Farmhouse Bed and Breakfast in Cutchogue that they ran together. On the East End Bruce continued to fish on his boat, The Alchemist, expanded upon his passions for gardening and took up bee keeping. He was a member of the Custer Observatory Bee Club, and volunteered with the Cornell Gardeners, the Hallockville Museum Farm Garden Committee, and as a garden guide at the Landcraft Garden Foundation.

Bruce will be remembered for his deep dedication to science, his kindness as a mentor, and his love for his family, friends, community and protecting the environment.

There will be a memorial service at the Setauket Presbyterian Church in Setauket/East Setauket NY on Saturday, February 22nd at 1:00 pm.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests that people donate to the Kanas Center for Hospice Care (part of East End Hospice), Compassionate Care ALS, or the Landcraft Garden Foundation, groups that significantly helped Bruce while he w

as sick or were a source of joy to him in his retirement.

Obituary provided by the family and SoMAS Dean Paul Shepson,