Dr. Esther Leise

Professor of Biology

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

This was one of, if not the first comprehensive book to be published about the marine sciences for the general public. It is an overview of oceanography and marine biology, written by the woman who came to be influential in the start of the environmental movement in this country with her publication of Silent Spring. I read this little book about the importance of the world's oceans when I was in the fifth grade, and it helped to focus my career goals, even at that early age, on the marine sciences.