Renowned plant biologist is research associate at Roanoke

For Dr. Elisabeth Gantt, science never stops, even in retirement.

At 81 years old, Gantt, a renowned plant biologist, arrives at Roanoke's campus around 8 a.m. most days and settles into a place where she has spent at least 50 years of her life - the research lab.

Gantt is a research associate in Roanoke's Biology department, a position that she has had for the past year since moving to the Roanoke Valley from the University of Maryland, where she is a Distinguished Professor Emerita.

"If one does research all the time, it's very, very hard to let it go," she said. "You are just as curiosity driven."

At Roanoke, Gantt is doing her own research, while also working with some of the College's biology students. Gantt's research interest is studying photosynthetic processes in plant cells, which are fundamental for converting solar energy into chemical energy.

"She's royalty in science," said Dr. DorothyBelle Poli, a Biology professor at Roanoke and a former student of Gantt's at the University of Maryland, where Poli earned her doctorate. "Science is who she is. We're lucky to have someone of her caliber here."

"She was a huge influence on me as a woman in science," Poli added.

Gantt was born in Yugoslavia, where she received only a few years of elementary education before her family was displaced in the midst of World War II. They moved to the United States - landing in Chicago - when Gantt was 15. She received her bachelor's degree in biology at Blackburn College in Illinois, and continued on to Northwestern University, where she earned a master's degree and a doctorate.

Gantt's impressive career includes 22 years as a biologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where she studied the effect of sunlight on plants and comparative algal research. In 1986, Gantt moved her laboratory to the University of Maryland and became a professor with the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics.

In 1996, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and at the time, she represented one of its few female members who made up only 5 percent of the prestigious society.

Gantt's other notable awards include receiving the Faculty Excellence Award for Research at the University of Maryland and the Psychological Society of America's Award of Excellence. Blackburn College honored her with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1980.  

Gantt officially retired from the University of Maryland in 2007, but she did not stop working. She continued her research work at the university another eight years, before she and her husband, a former cancer researcher, moved to Roanoke County to live near their daughter's family.

Gantt wasn't bagging her research work with the move. Through her connection with Poli, Roanoke College invited Gantt to continue her work on campus.

Most week days, she toils away in Room 241A, a lab in the College's Life Science building. Though algae is her primary focus, Gantt said her research emphases at Roanoke still are evolving.

She also has worked outside of the lab in the past year. Gantt lectured for a Roanoke Biology class and the College's Elderscholar program and discussed photosynthesis with the Biology department, in addition to working with students.

"The students who she has worked with in the lab love her," Poli said. "She has high standards."

At Roanoke, Gantt is sharing equipment and materials from her now closed University of Maryland lab. The items include several microscopes, light-measuring meters, centrifuges, magnetic stirrers, a drying oven and more.

Aside from her work at Roanoke, Gantt is a reviewing editor with the National Academy of Sciences. She also is section editor for the American Society of Plant Biologists newsletter. She writes occasional scientific reviews for some plant biology journals.

This summer at Roanoke, Gantt said she plans to explore collaborations with faculty in the areas of chemistry and environmental science.  

"She wants to continue to help science," Poli said. "She understands the power of undergraduate institutions."