Women’s History Month at WHOI

Students
After the MIT-WHOI Joint Program was formed in 1968, it took 2 years for the first female students to arrive. Kathy Burns came to Woods Hole in 1970 and completed pioneering work on the fate and effects of No. 2 fuel oil spilled in Buzzards Bay near West Falmouth. When she graduated in 1975, her class of 12 included just one other woman, who received a master’s degree. Today, Burns lives in Australia, where she is an expert in marine environmental quality and organic contaminants.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)