*Image courtesy of EMB

Elisabeth Mast Buck

Elisabeth spent her first 20 years in Roland Park, in northern Baltimore. She was one of three sisters. She attended Roland Park Country School, an "open air" school, where she remembered wearing a coat and fingerless gloves in classrooms whose windows were open even in winter. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts before returning to Baltimore for a Master's in child psychology from Johns Hopkins, where her father, S.O. Mast was a professor of physiology - and where John Buck was one of his graduate students.

Through this association, they met and married. On their honeymoon, they skied the White Mountains in New Hampshire. They climbed the Grand Teton, a 14,000 foot peak in Wyoming, the next summer. Their early married life was energetic and exploratory.

During the war years, she and John lived in Rochester, New York, and raised a family of four. Once all of her children were in school, she became involved with the local cooperative nursery school, first as a teacher and then as director, leading to recognition as a Maryland Teacher of the Year.

She left this career to go with John on his Sabbatical year in Cambridge, England during the 60s, after which she became increasingly involved with him in research. They traveled together to Southeast Asia, and later to New Guinea, studying bioluminescence, particularly fireflies, and she authored and co-authored a number of scientific papers.

Her father had established a tradition of spending summers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and this became a tradition for her as well, first with her birth family, and then with her own family.

Woods Hole is a vibrant center of biological and oceanographic research, with three major laboratories. The research community founded the Children’s School Of Science to supply a unique intensive, in-depth education experience in biological and marine science to grade-school children. During her summers in Woods Hole, she volunteered at the school, and all four her children passed joyfully. Eventually, she served as its President. Over the years, most of her grandchildren attended, and she saw three of her great-grandchildren continue that tradition. Elisabeth also enjoyed sailing, crewing regularly with John on Woods Hole Yacht Club Sunday races well into her 70s.

In 1990, she and John moved to the Fairhaven community in Maryland, where they enjoyed years of involvement and engagement as they wound down their scientific research.

-Taken/edited from bio written by Peter Buck

*Image courtesy of NIH

John Bonner Buck

Dr. Buck’s scientific career began one summer during his undergraduate studies at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, when he undertook an investigation into the flashing behavior of a local firefly species, Photinus pyralis, which abounds in Baltimore every July.

Working in his backyard, aided by a schoolboy neighbor, he timed flashes and measured temperature and ambient light with equipment from the departmental storeroom. This study revealed that the timing of the flashing was the basis of the dialog between these insects. He subsequently completed his PhD also at Johns Hopkins, working under Professor S. O. Mast. His thesis, published in 1937, reported on periodicity and diurnal rhythm, plainly showing what must have been one of the earliest examples of a circadian rhythm involving bioluminescence.

In 1939 Dr. Buck married Professor Mast’s daughter Elisabeth, who continued as his wife and research companion throughout the remaining 65 years of his life.

Following postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology, where Dr. Buck pursued cytological interests, he spent two years at the Carnegie Institute as a Research Associate, and then joined the faculty at the University of Rochester.

He moved in 1945 to The National Institutes of Health, where he later became head of the Laboratory of Physical Biology. Reflecting his own wide interests, the Laboratory pursued research on vision, photosynthesis, muscle physiology, insect respiration, and many aspects of bioluminescence. He remained at NIH until his retirement into emeritus status in 1985, after which he continued regular publication of research papers, his last appearing in the Journal of Insect Behavior in 2002.

From 1933 until the end of his life he continued to conduct research during the summer months at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, instructing on the Laboratory’s famous Invertebrate Course in 1942 – 1944 and again in 1957 – 1959, and acting as a Corporation member during 1937 – 1985 and a Trustee of the Laboratory during 1959 – 1977.

Dr. Buck became interested in the synchronous flashing reported, as early as 1680, to occur in some tropical firefly species, and this topic dominated his work subsequent to his observing it first-hand in Thailand and Borneo in 1965 and again in 1969, when he led the National Science Foundation’s South East Asian Bioluminescence Expedition to Papua-New Guinea on the research vessel Alpha Helix. The synchrony modeling effort begun by Dr. Buck grew into a fascinating example of comparative behavioral physiology, showing that the same observed behavior—flash synchrony—is achieved and maintained in quite different ways by different species. He was one of the earliest to theorize about the evolutionary and adaptive significance of bioluminescence, including marine bioluminescence, and synchrony. His chapter in Peter Herring’s landmark volume, Bioluminescence in Action remains a frequently cited work on the functions of bioluminescence across all phyla.

Dr. Buck had wide-ranging interests outside his scientific work. His honeymoon included an ascent of the Grand Teton. He participated for many years in the Woods Hole Yacht Club’s Cape Cod Knockabout racing series, and wrote entertaining reports on the races for the Falmouth Enterprise newspaper under the pseudonym Old Salt. He was also a prolific poet, essayist and photographer.

He was an ardent pacifist, registering as a conscientious objector during the Second World War. He became a convinced Quaker following his move from Rochester to NIH. He stood a weekly vigil throughout the Vietnam War, and helped found the Bethesda Friends’ Meeting. He was active in environmental causes, and in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament and civil rights.