Isabella "Izzie" Aiona Abbott

Born: 1919

Died: 2010

Country of Birth: Maui, HI

Nationality: USA

Ethnicity: Hawaiian Islander

University of Hawaii at Mānoa AB Botany 1941; University of Michigan MS Botany 1942; University of California, Berkeley PhD Botany 1950

"“I look upon it (her book "La’au Hawai’i: Traditional Hawaiian Uses of Plants") as a Western scientist’s viewpoint of the Hawai’ian way of doing things,” she said. “Why is this necessary? So that Hawai’ians are not put in second- or third-class status of Native people who don’t know anything. Hawai’ian culture is unbelievably sophisticated.” (wok.aises.org); “I love seaweeds,” she enthuses, “but those two [Gracilaria salicornia and Hypnea musciformis] creep around in places they should not be, and hookweed drags limu kala down into a ball so the tide takes it up on the beach where it dries up. That’s not a hospitable way for a visitor to behave. . . .People eat it [Limu kala], turtles eat it. And kala means ‘to forgive.’ It’s used in purification ceremonies like ho’oponopono (the Hawaiian reconciliation process), or if you’ve been sitting with a dead person, or if you’re going on a dangerous journey.” (hawaii.edu); “Hawaiians ate seaweed raw. It was cleaned and pounded and salt added as a preservative,” says Abbott, an accomplished cook. “It was massaged to release the flavors. That’s where you get lomi salmon. Many older Hawaiians, myself included, eat limu by itself because we like it. It has vitamins and minerals. Today, people think all limu taste alike, or yuck. We’ve moved to a cuisine that uses it more as a pickle.” (hawaii.edu); “After (Hawaiian Queen) Liliʻuokalani was deposed, all the ladies whose husbands lost their jobs because of the overthrow got together to make this,” she explains. The quilt displays (Hawaiian King) Kalākaua emblems and four Hawaiian flags, which were banned at the time. “It says, ‘you can’t tell me I can’t have a Hawaiian flag,’” she declares. “I have four.” (hawaii.edu); “I named the NOAA research ship Hiʻialakai,” she says with pride. “I kept thinking of little reef fishes that poke around here and there, and that’s what this ship does, poke around.” (hawaii.edu); "

— Isabella "Izzie" Aiona Abbott

Field of Study: educator, phycologist, and ethnobotanist

Institution/Corporation: University of Hawaii at Mānoa;

Degrees & Memberships: Member: Board of Directors, Bishop Museum, the Kaho‘olawe Island Reserve Commission, the Reserve Advisory Council for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve (now part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument) and the Native Hawaiian Culture and Arts Program (NHCAP); american Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 1988); National Academy of Sciences (1981)

Awards: 1969 Darbaker Prize, Botanical Society of America; 1993 Charles Reed Bishop Medal; 1997 Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal, National Academy of Sciences; 2005 named a Living Treasure of Hawaiʻi, Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii; 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award, Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources; 2006 Centennial Awardee, Botanical society of America; 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award, Physiological Society of America; 2003 Ka Ali'i Pauahi Award, Kamehameha Schools; 2001 David Malo Award, W. Honolulu Rotary Club; 2001 National Distinguished Ethnobotanist, Society of Economic Botany

Achievements: discovered over 200 different algae species; compiled a book on marine algae of the Monterey peninsula, which later was expanded to include all of the California coast; authored eight books and over 150 publications; 1976 wrote "Marine Algae of California" the definitive study on Pacific Coast seaweed; established the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's underground major of Ethnobotany;