Pamela Hallock Muller
Pamela Hallock Muller
Pamela Hallock Muller
Geobiologist & Oceanographer
Pamela (“Pam”) Hallock Muller is a geobiologist and oceanographer. She studies modern and ancient coral reefs in order to understand past and present marine environments.
Pam spent the first 14 years of her life on a small ranch on the Rosebud Reservation in south-central South Dakota, on the northern edge of the Nebraska Sand Hills, where she grew up on horseback. The wide-open spaces, the cycles of the seasons, and the infinite stars on winter nights inspired a love of and curiosity for nature. Her interest in travel was motivated by an elementary school teacher at the one-room country school she attended, as well as one aunt, a teacher who gave Pam “gently read” National Geographic magazines. When Pam was 15, her family moved to Missoula, Montana, so that she and her 3-year-older brother would have the opportunity to attend college, something that the financial state of the poor little ranch could never support.
After finishing high school, Pam attended the University of Montana, earning a B.A. in Zoology in 1969. The late 1950s through the 1960s was the time of the Space Race. Although it was fascinating, Pam recognized that there was no chance that a near-sighted young woman could become an astronaut. She knew, however, that there was another little-explored realm: the oceans.
Pam applied to graduate school in the pre-Title IX era (Title IX is a 1972 U.S. law that bars sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding). Her undergraduate advisor did not think girls should pursue graduate degrees, and she was rejected by several graduate programs either directly or indirectly for being female. Despite this, she was accepted by the Oceanography Department at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa based on her grades and GRE scores (the GRE is the Graduate Record Examinations, a standardized test required to apply to some U.S. graduate programs). She earned an M.Sc. in Oceanography in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1977, carrying out field and laboratory studies of larger benthic foraminifera—single-celled organisms with tiny shells—that live abundantly on Pacific coral reefs. Her first academic position was as an Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin; she only half-jokingly calls her time there a “post-doc in sedimentary geology” (a postdoc is a temporary professional position usually focused on research).
Floresina amphiphaga, a predatory foram from Florida described by Pam and Helen K. Talge (the two left images are of adults, the right image is of a juvenile) . Source: World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).
Pam joined the University of South Florida (USF) faculty in 1983 as an Associate Professor in Marine Science and was promoted to Professor in 1988. Pam and her graduate students study the geologic record of reefs as well as modern coral reefs, gaining insight not only into past and present environments, but also the likely effects of human activities on the future of Earth's ecosystems. Pam has published on environmental degradation issues since the 1980s. Her work has implications for reef and shelf ecology (the shelf is the edge of a continent that is covered by seawater), environmental management, evolution, paleoceanography, paleoecology, sedimentology, and hydrocarbon exploration. Pam has authored or co-authored more than 150 scholarly papers.
In addition to her research work, Pam is active as a faculty member and member of the professional community of paleontologists. She has served as thesis or dissertation advisor to more than 75 students. She has also been a committee member for nearly 100 additional students (a committee is a group of faculty members who help advise a graduate student and provide final approval of their work so that they can earn a graduate degree). She has hosted visiting scholars from around the world. She has also mentored undergraduates in a variety of contexts, including a student who was the 2012 USF St. Petersburg Outstanding Graduate. She has served on the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Leibniz Center for Marine Tropical Ecology (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany, and on the Board of Directors of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research. She is a Fellow of the Paleontological Society and the Geological Society of America, as well as a Sustaining Member of the Association for Women Geoscientists, the Association of Women in Science, and the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM).
In recognition of her achievements, Pam has been honored with awards for teaching, mentoring, and research. She was named the 1999 Outstanding Educator by the Association for Women Geoscientists, the 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority PhD Program’s Mentor of the Year, and the 2018 Kosove Distinguished Graduate Teaching and Service Awardee at USF. Her research has been honored with the 2015 Joseph A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research and the 2019 Raymond C. Moore Medal for Excellence in Paleontological Research by the Society for Sedimentary Geology. Her 1986 paper in PALAIOS with colleague Wolfgang Schlager—”Nutrient excess in the demise of coral reefs and carbonate platforms”—was named one the “Landmark Papers in Carbonate Sedimentology and Stratigraphy” by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 100th Anniversary Committee in 2017.
Daring to Dig Interview
In this video, Pam discusses the discrimination that she faced as a young woman applying for graduate school, her fight for equal pay at USF culminating in a 1998 lawsuit, the continuing problem of women being underpaid, and women discriminating against other women. This interview was conducted in 2014.
Selected journal articles by Pamela Hallock Muller
Hallock, P. 2000. Symbiont-bearing foraminifera: Harbingers of global change? Micropaleontology 46 (suppl. 1): 95–104. Link
Hallock, P., and W. Schlager. 1986. Nutrient excess and the demise of coral reefs and carbonate platforms. PALAIOS 1: 389–398. Link
Hallock, P., and M. Seddighi. 2020. Why did some larger benthic foraminifera become so large and flat? Sedimentology. Link
Hallock, P. and H.K. Talge. 1994. A predatory foraminifer, Floresina amphiphaga, n. sp., from the Florida Keys. Journal of Foraminiferal Research 24: 210–213. Link
Hallock, P., B.H. Lidz, E.M. Cockey-Burkhard, and K.B. Donnelly. 2003. Foraminifera as bioindicators in coral reef assessment and monitoring: The FORAM Index. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 81: 221–238. Link
Selected book chapters by Pamela Hallock Muller
Hallock P. 2015. Changing influences between life and limestones in Earth History. In: C. Birkeland (ed.). Coral reefs in the Anthropocene. Springer, Dordrecht. Link
Hallock, P. 2021. What Is happening to the world’s coral reefs?. In S.J. Culver (ed.), Troubled Waters. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. Link
Selected essays by Pamela Hallock Muller
Hallock, P. 2019. Blooming where planted in West Texas. STEM and Culture Chronicle, SACNAS, Medium, 6 December 2019. Link
Further reading
2019. Pamela Hallock Muller awarded the prestigious Raymond C. Moore Medal. USF College of Marine Science News, 21 May 2019. Link
Kusek, K. 2021. Celebrating women’s history month with Dr. Pamela Hallock Muller. Interview of Pam Hallock for USF College of Marine Science News, 15 March 2021. Link
Wikipedia: Pamela Hallock. Link
Video & audio content
Diversify Ocean Sciences: Pamela Hallock. Video, 5 January 2021, via YouTube. Link