2013 Mimi Koehl

Dr. Mimi A. R. Koehl is an American marine biologist and Professor at University of California, Berkeley, and head of the Koehl Lab. She graduated from Gettysburg College Magna Cum Laude, with a B.A. in Biology, and Duke University with a Ph.D. in Zoology, where she studied with Steven Wainwright. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington where she studied with Dr. Richard Strathmann, and at University of York, where she studied with Dr. John Currey.

Dr. Koehl studies the physics of how organisms interact with each other and their environments. Her goal is to elucidate basic physical rules that can be applied to different kinds of organisms about how body structure affects mechanical function in nature. She combine techniques from fluid and solid mechanics with those from biology and ecology to do experiments in the field as well as in the laboratory.