Materials are arranged in the order created during the interview process with the first file containing administrative materials created before, during, and after the interview.
Accession No. PA.2002.0010: Sayed El-Sayed, 2002 May
[identification of item], Sayed El-Sayed Oral History, SPEC.PA.56.0116, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University
Contains audiocassettes.
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Processed by: Audrey Wimbiscus, 2023 November; Finding aid written by: David Mezick, 2023 December
Sayed Zakaria El-Sayed (1926-2005) was an oceanographer who studied the Antarctic marine ecosystem. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. El-Sayed studied oceanography the University of Alexandria. He received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in 1949 and a Master’s degree in 1951. El-Sayed then traveled to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California San Diego on a Fulbright Fellowship. In 1959, he received a PhD from the University of Washington. El-Sayed became faculty at Texas A&M University in 1961.
Starting in the early 1960s, El-Sayed studied the Antarctic marine ecosystem. His research focused on phytoplankton, krill, primary productivity (how phytoplankton convert carbon dioxide and water into organic matter using energy from sunlight, also known as photosynthesis), and the effect of ozone depletion on the marine ecosystem, including the effect of ultra-violet radiation on phytoplankton. During this time, El-Sayed was a member of the biology working group of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), an international scientific research organization. Through his affiliation with SCAR, he helped to start the Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks (BIOMASS) program in the late 1970s. BIOMASS was a multi-national scientific program for the study of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.
El-Sayed retired from Texas A&M University in 1997 as Professor Emeritus of Oceanography. El-Sayed Glacier, located in Antarctica, was named for Sayed Zakaria El-Sayed.
The Sayed El-Sayed Oral History, dated 2002, contains audio recordings, administrative information, and transcripts of the interview between El-Sayed and Brian Shoemaker of the American Polar Society conducted on May 7, 2002. This interview was a part of a series of polar oral histories sponsored by American Polar Society and Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program, with funding from the National Science Foundation. Major topics discussed include El-Sayed’s education and early career, his first grant from the National Science Foundation to study primary productivity in Drake Passage aboard an Argentine ship, his subsequent research in the Weddell Sea, his research in the Antarctic related to phytoplankton, krill, primary productivity, and the effect of ozone depletion on the marine ecosystem, including the effect of ultra-violet radiation on phytoplankton, his involvement with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and the origins of the Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks (BIOMASS) program and his involvement.