Wolf Vladimir Vishniac (April 22, 1922 – December 10, 1973) was an American

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Ancient Greek, Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of Microorganism, microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, f ...

. He was the son of photographer

Roman Vishniac Roman Vishniac (; russian: link=no, Рома́н Соломо́нович Вишня́к; August 19, 1897 – January 22, 1990) was a Russian-American photographer, best known for capturing on film the culture of Jews in Central and Eastern Euro ...

and the father of astronomer

Ethan Vishniac Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac (born 1955) is an American astrophysicist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Astrophysical Journal and a professor of Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, after holding positions at University of Saskatchewan ...

. Educated at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, he was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

. He died on a research trip to the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

attempting to retrieve equipment in a crevasse. The crater Vishniac on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

is named in his honor. Wolf Vishniac contributed greatly to the search for life on Mars by developing a special miniature laboratory that could be transported to that planet, known as the "Wolf Trap". This research was supported by a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

grant started in 1959, the very first ever for the "biological sciences."

Wolf Vishniac Memorial Award

A Wolf Vishniac Memorial Award for Young Researchers is awarded at the biennially held International Symposium On Environmental Biogeochemistry (ISEB). The award is presented to researchers no older than 35 years who must be a first author and give a presentation at the symposium. A notable recipient is Sergey Zimov, who received the award at the ISEB-10 in 1991.William S. Reeburgh
“Meeting report.”
Report on the Tenth International Symposium on Environmental Biogeochemistry (ISEB-10). In: '' Geomicrobiology Journal'' 28 January 1992, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 73–74. (Full text a
eScholarship, UC
) Retrieved 3 November 2016. Other recipients include M. Francesca Cotrufo at the ISEB-12 (1995), Alexis S. Templeton at the ISEB-14 (1999), Kamlesh Jangid at the ISEB-14 (1999), Salwa Hamdi at the ISEB-19 (2009), and Jillian M. Petersen at the ISEB-20 (2011).Jillian M. Petersen
“Curriculum vitae Dr. Jillian M. Petersen.”
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2016.

In Culture

In his 1980 TV series '' Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'',

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...

told the story of Wolf Vishniac in Episode 5, "Blues for a Red Planet".

External links

Short bio entry, “Vishniac, Wolf Vladimir (1922–1973)”A Photographer of a Vanished World and his Familyarchived version

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vishniac, Wolf V. American microbiologists American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish American scientists 1922 births 1973 deaths Accidental deaths in Antarctica Astrobiologists University of Rochester faculty Brooklyn College alumni Jewish microbiologists German emigrants to the United States 20th-century American Jews