Coley-Kursar Endowment in Biology

Biology professors Phyllis “Lissy” Coley and Thomas “Tom” Kursar have taught more than 6,000 students in their 30-year careers at the U. They also have conferred 20 doctorate degrees and five Master’s degrees and trained numerous postdoctoral fellows in tropical rainforest ecology.

Along the way, Coley and Kursar have become world renowned leaders in tropical ecology and rainforest conservation and helped transform the scientific culture of Panama.

By Students, For Students

To commemorate Coley’s and Kursar’s remarkable legacy of education and research at the University of Utah, and around the world, a named endowment has been created to support biology graduate students in perpetuity.

“It is my great pleasure to announce the newly established Coley-Kursar Endowment in the Department of Biology,” says Denise Dearing, Distinguished Professor and chair of Biology.

The purpose of the endowment is to provide critically needed funding for graduate students while they are conducting field studies. The initial phase, with a minimum base of $50,000, will be used to provide students with funds for supplies and travel for ecologically focused studies. Later, when the endowment grows beyond $250,000, the funds will be dispersed as direct stipends to students engaged in fieldwork.

“For several decades, Tom and Lissy have had a profound influence on and commitment to the training of the next generations of ecologists, particularly tropical biologists,” says Dearing. “I’m proud to see their legacy solidified with a permanent endowment.”

In fact, the concept and planning of a named Coley-Kursar Endowment was developed by the current and former graduate students and postdocs of Tom and Lissy.

“Lissy taught me that being a scientist meant engaging with the larger society, not just to communicate research

findings, but to use our skills to give back to society,” says Paul Fine, who earned his doctorate in 2004. “I am proud of Lissy for her scientific achievements, and her dedication to her students, but I am especially proud of the tangible results for conservation that Tom and Lissy achieved in Panama.” Fine is now an associate professor at UC-Berkeley.

Anyone may contribute to the endowment. If you would like to make a gift, or a pledge, please visit biology.utah.edu or contact Jeff Martin, martin@science.utah.edu.

Building a Legacy

Coley and Kursar arrived in Utah in 1982, shortly after completing a shared postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

“We believe this was the only time the Smithsonian split one postdoc position in half for two recipients,” says Coley. “That six-month experience launched our life-long collaboration, combining Tom’s expertise in biophysics and plant physiology and my work in ecology.”

They were recruited to the U by then-chair David Wolstenholme, a successor to K. Gordon Lark who had built a world class Biology Department during the 1970s. Coley was hired as an assistant professor and Tom obtained a NIH postdoctoral appointment in Gordon Lark’s research group.

By 1984, Tom and Lissy had established a robust research group at the U and were traveling regularly to their principal research site in Panama.

In 1990, while Lissy was on sabbatical, they travelled around the world and spent a year working and camping in remote rainforests in Africa and South East Asia, and conducted extensive research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

“During the 1980s and 1990s, we would spend two to three months per year working in rainforests along with several