Lynn Margulis was an American biologist, born on 5th March 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, in a tough neighbourhood on the South Side. Her parents were Morris Alexander, an attorney, and Leona Wise Alexander, a travel agent. She was the eldest of four daughters. 

Lynn Margulis’ family (poster by Author)

Margulis married astronomer and graduate student in physics at the University of Chicago, Carl Sagan, in 1957 soon after she received her Bachelor’s degree. They had two sons, Dorion and Jeremy Sagan, before their divorce in 1964. She later married Thomas N. Margulis, a crystallographer, and had a son, Zachary, and a daughter, Jennifer, before getting divorced again in 1980. She had a relationship with fellow biologist, Ricardo Guerrero, in the 2000s.

Lynn Margulis’ family tree (poster by Author)

She was a religious agnostic, and a staunch evolutionist, though she rejected the modern evolutionary synthesis of Neo-Darwinism postulated by Charles Darwin. She argued instead that “Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create” and maintained that symbiosis was the major driver of evolutionary changed. She was always upbeat, excited to explore the nature world around her and full of adventure and laughter.

Lynn Margulis continued to dedicate her life to science until her death in 2011 in Amherst, Massachusetts, after suffering from a haemorrhagic stroke. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered in her favourite research areas near her home, as per her final dying wish.