Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen is a prominent Danish-American physiologist, who became the first woman president of the American Physiological Society in 1975.
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Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen was born on November 3, 1918 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the youngest of four children of two eminent physiologists, the Nobel Laureate August Krogh and Marie Krogh. Her father, August Krogh received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1920 for his work on the regulation of muscle oxygen delivery via capillaries and arterioles.
Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen married Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, a fellow physiologist, and received doctoral degrees in Dentistry, Odontology, and Physiology from the University of Copenhagen. Knut and Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen became a prominent physiology team at Duke University, but divorced in 1966. Bodil became Department Chair at Case Western Reserve University and later devoted her career full-time to research at Mont Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine.[1][2]
The Bodil M. Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award honors a member of the American Physiological Society who is judged to have made outstanding contributions to physiological research and demonstrated dedication and commitment to excellence in training of young physiologists.[3]