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Sigurd Olsen Endowment

The Sigurd Olsen Endowed Scholarship provides assistance to undergraduate science majors in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington.

Sigurd Otto Maglegaard Olsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1908. Economic pressures forced him to leave school at 15 and he began a career in the Department of Social Welfare in Copenhagen. Unable to pursue a formal university education, he worked in his spare hours in botany and biology, specializing in limnology.

In 1939, the University of Copenhagen recognized his contributions to the field, awarding him the gold medal in botany for his study of charophytes, published through the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences. He continued his University of Copenhagen affiliation until he married Ingrith Deyrup and emigrated to the United States in 1963.

For the next seven years, he worked as a biologist and research assistant professor in the UW School of Fisheries. After retiring in 1970, he devoted himself full time to biological studies and photography, developing techniques for capturing subjects too large for photomicrography but too small for standard photography. Much of his scientific work was carried out at Bear Lake on the Kitsap Peninsula and focused on the ground cone Boschniakia hookeri, pictured at the bottom of the page. He died in 1980.

Professor Emeritus Ingrith Deyrup-Olsen and 2002 scholars David Hiller, Beth Dallman and Natalia Ospina

Ingrith Deyrup-Olsen, professor emeritus of zoology, joined the UW faculty in 1964. A recipient of UW's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988, she worked tirelessly until her death in 2004 to expand educational and research opportunities for students, especially for women and minorities.

By establishing the Sigurd Olsen Scholarship, she sought to make college education accessible to talented students who might not otherwise be able to attend the University of Washington.

Past scholarship recipients and their majors:

Boschniakia hookeri Walp. (Orobanchaceae) is a perennial root parasite, growing on certain Ericaceae, and with a restricted westerly distribution on the North American continent.