To the Bowdoin community,

I write to share the sad news that Edward S. Gilfillan III, the former director of Bowdoin’s Marine Research Station and adjunct professor and lecturer in the Environmental Studies Program emeritus, died this past Thursday, December 14, 2017, at the age of 76. Ed was an internationally known expert on the effects of oil spills on marine plants and wildlife and a respected teacher and valuable colleague. He will be missed a great deal by the Bowdoin community.

Ed was born on June 1, 1941, and graduated in 1959 from Manchester High School in Massachusetts. He majored in zoology and earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale University in 1963, followed by MSc (1976) and PhD (1970) degrees at the University of British Columbia, where he studied zooplankton ecology.

In 1970-1971, Ed was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Marine Station, and from l971 to 1974 he was a senior research associate at the station. He then was a researcher at the Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine. He joined the Bowdoin faculty in the fall of 1977 as adjunct professor of chemistry and lecturer in environmental studies, and became director of the Bowdoin Marine Research Station at Bethel Point the following year.

In response to a critical need for scientific information on the complex interactions of petroleum and toxic metals in the marine environment, Ed joined with Professors David Page and the late Dana Mayo to form the Bowdoin Hydrocarbon Research Center (HRC). The center generated important data for researchers, policy makers, the oil industry, and agencies charged with environmental protection and public safety; it also gave students the opportunity to participate in this critical work. The HRC’s oil-spill research took Ed around the world, and he coauthored more than seventy papers on the environmental impacts of spills, from comparatively minor incidents in the Gulf of Maine to the significant releases of oil from the grounding of the Amoco Cadiz on the coast of Brittany in 1978 and the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Ed and his colleagues received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council of Canada, and other agencies for their pioneering research.  ​

Ed brought his extensive experience into the classroom and lab; he taught in the Environmental Studies Program for twenty-four years. Upon his retirement in 2001, he was elected an honorary member of the Bowdoin Alumni Association. His colleagues in the chemistry department and his students remember Ed’s many kindnesses and the Labrador retrievers who often accompanied him in Cleaveland Hall.

Ed’s professional commitment to environmental protection extended to public service as well; he served on the Marine Research Board, the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, the Research Excellence Partnership Advisory Board of the Maine Science and Technology Commission, and on the Research Advisory Committee of the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, among other positions.

Ed is survived by his wife, Katherine, of Harpswell. Memorial arrangements are pending and will be provided when they become available.

It is never easy to lose a loved one, but it can be particularly difficult as we approach the holidays. I know each of you joins me in offering heartfelt condolences to Katherine along with our deep thanks for Ed’s many contributions to science and scholarship, to his students, and to our college.

Sincerely,

Clayton