In Memory of Dr. Karen Maruska
Dr. Karen P. Maruska passed away on March 7th after a long and courageous fight with colon cancer. She was beloved by all who knew her.
Karen was born on September 26, 1969, in Teaneck, New Jersey. Karen's journey as a scientist began at the age of three when she and her grandfather caught a crawfish in a brook behind her family home. She soon declared to her father that she wanted to be a "fisher lady" when she grew up. When Karen was in 2nd grade, her parents, Caroline and Bob Maruska, bought a family vacation home on Martha's Vineyard, giving Karen and her sister Susan great times at the beach. This was also an opportunity for Karen to learn more about the aquatic creatures that she loved, sharks being her favorite. Throughout her K-12 years, Karen was at the top of her class and participated in a variety of athletics, including soccer, basketball, softball and windsurfing during her summers on the Vineyard.
Karen began her academic career at the University of New Hampshire where she majored in Biology. As an undergraduate she worked with Greg Skomal, a Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Biologist doing shark research. Karen pursued a Master's degree at the Florida Institute of Technology, where she studied a close relative of her favorite animal, the stingray. She then moved to the University of Hawaii for her Ph.D. with Tim Tricas, where she spent most of her time at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island studying sensory systems in coral reef fish. Karen was also a Grass Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. Karen did her post-doctoral training at Stanford University with Russ Fernald, where her four years of research studying social interactions among fish led to 19 publications. It was there that she initiated the research she brought to LSU in 2012. Karen wanted to understand the sensory and neural mechanisms underpinning behavior. Her organism of study was the African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni, a fruitful choice due to its rich repertoire of well-characterized reproductive behaviors.
Karen led a vibrant, well-funded, and productive lab. She devoted her work to studying A. burtoni, an African cichlid fish, as a model organism to reveal the roles of olfactory, visual, and auditory cues in reproduction and the brain regions and circuitry that mediate specific behaviors. Karen attracted excellent graduate students, including three who were funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Forty-five papers and five book chapters were published by the Maruska lab, with authors including graduate students, post-docs and 12 undergraduates. Karen was a remarkably gifted mentor, and fostered a lab environment of achievement, collaboration, inclusion, and respect.
Over her career, Karen won over 20 awards for excellence in research. At LSU she received the Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award in 2016 and the following year was chosen for a highly prestigious Rainmaker Award. Karen also received a Tiger Athletic Foundation Undergraduate Teaching Award and most recently was honored with the LSU Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award.
Karen loved her job at LSU and was a much-admired teacher and mentor to many junior faculty during her time in Baton Rouge. She was an LSU Tiger fan through and through, as demonstrated by a decades old LSU t-shirt framed in her office acquired long before she arrived here. In addition to her academic work, Karen had many hobbies including painting and photography. She was devoted to her two cats, Kona and Nalu.
As a daughter, sister, aunt, and friend Karen was the best. She was thoughtful, kind, and a wonderful human being. She especially loved spending time and conversing with her two nephews Liam and Luke. We will love and miss her forever.
Gifts to the Dr. Karen P. Maruska Graduate Support Fund will provide support to graduate students in the Biological Sciences department who are conducting research in the areas of neuroscience, sensory biology or behavioral biology.
The LSU Foundation will work with Dr. Maruska's family to establish the purpose of tribute funds contributed through this effort. Her family will also represent all donors for any needed revision to the purpose of the fund.
The LSU Foundation will share notices about memorial gifts with Dr. Maruska's family. We do not share the gift amount unless a donor explicitly gives us permission to do so.