On 22 June 2023, the building housing the Institute for Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) in Baltimore, Maryland was renamed the Rita Rossi Colwell Center in a gala event. It was a spectacular evening, organized by IMET Director Russell Hill and his capable staff.

I was personally very happy to be able to attend the event, as I have the utmost respect for Dr. Rita Colwell. I first met Rita when I was a faculty member at the University of Queensland (UQ) some 25 years ago. Rita was visiting UQ and the senior executives invited me to join them and Rita for dinner at the UQ Staff Club. I think the reason that I was invited was the fact that I was an American marine biologist (and I could help translate American English to Australian English!). I was seated next to Rita and she asked me about my academic training amid our discussion about the state of marine sciences in the U.S. and Australia. I told her that I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and when I told her the name of my advisor, she reached over, held my arm, and said “You poor boy”. It was such a genuine, sweet, and absolutely appropriate remark, and I was immediately captivated by Rita’s personal touch, combined with her considerable scientific acumen.

I had the pleasure of running into Rita several more times in my career, and a memorable time was at an American Geophysical Union conference reception in San Francisco. The reception was for Prince Rainier from Monaco, a patron of marine science. Rita told me about the memoir that she was writing about her career, which resulted in her book “A Lab of One’s Own: One Women’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science”.

The IMET event featured some very nice speeches, with an amazing emcee, Greg Simmons, University of Maryland Baltimore County. I loved that Dr. Darryll Pines, University of Maryland College Park President, said that Rita was “peerless”, with her unparalleled publication record (800+ scientific papers, 20 books), number of Ph.D. students (64) and postdocs (~200) and honorary degrees (62). Darryll presented Rita with a rare golden terrapin.

IMET is a unique partnership between three University System of Maryland universities: University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Dr. Jay Perman (USM Chancellor and former UMB President) emphasized Rita’s ability to connect ecosystem health with human health, Dr. Peter Goodwin (UMCES) emphasized Rita’s groundbreaking cholera research, and Dr. Valerie Ashby (UMBC) emphasized how Rita inspired her and a generation of women scientists. A nice video tribute from the current Director of the National Science Foundation Sethuraman Panchanathan was played. Dr. Panchanathan could not attend Rita’s event because he was at a White House reception with U.S. President Biden and Indian Prime Minister Moti—a pretty good excuse.

My favorite tribute to Rita was by Dr. Russell Hill, as Russell was one of Rita’s many postdocs and he talked about how Rita helped launch his career. Russell mentioned that a whole family of bacteria are named after Rita. He also recounted how Rita’s older sister Marie came to IMET and he was able to give her a personal tour. I loved meeting Rita’s daughters Stacie and Alison. They mentioned how much Rita missed her late husband of 62 years, Jack Colwell.

Rita’s speech was amazing in its scope and combination of interesting science, science applications that saved lives, and personal connections that Rita made during her career. Rita spoke about the cholera project in Bangladesh in which she and her team taught women to filter pond water through Sari cloth to help purify their drinking water. This elegantly simple method served to reduce the incidence of cholera by 50%. She also demonstrated her ability to stay current by talking about remote sensing projects to help predict cholera outbreaks by looking at phytoplankton blooms. The most poignant moment of the evening was when Rita choked us all up when she concluded that her only regret was that her parents, Luis and Louise Rossi, and her husband Jack Colwell could not share this special event with her.