Pat Noyes

Pat Noyes was a student of the world. She studied photography, metals, physics, zoology, trains, and more. Her passion for learning took her from the Northwest to the Pacific Islands, Europe, and around the globe. While not in the classroom or researching in the field, Pat took time to care for the community around her. She was active in local wilderness and conservation issues and was a tremendous supporter of OPB.

Born in Seattle, Washington in 1921, Pat was working for the Navy and running a photography shop in Hawaii when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After the war, she studied physics at Berkeley, one of the very few women in the field, and left to pursue a degree at the California School of Fine Arts. She studied photography with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston. Recently, a one-woman exhibition of her photographic work was held in Paris, France and her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Pat went on from photography to become an expert in electron microscopy and also earned degrees in zoology from Berkeley and Yale. She was a faculty member at OSU in zoology and was a professor at the U of O in biology from 1974 until her retirement in 1989.

Her passion in retirement included a love for building model trains, along with extensive travel, and giving back to the community. Pat endowed the Richard M. and Patricia Noyes Professorship in Chemistry at U of O, along with a scholarship to her high school, and supported many musical, political, and environmental causes. She was also a loyal and generous supporter of OPB, an organization she believed helped educate, inform and entertain so many people in our region. Pat included a generous gift to OPB in her will, leaving a legacy that ensures the programming she valued in her lifetime will be available for generations to come.