Mary Wilder Stoertz, 49, professor of geology at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, died Feb. 26 of a heart attack.

Her geology career began in high school when she won a glaciology internship on the Juneau Icefield, Alaska, funded by the National Science Foundation. While an undergraduate at the University of Washington in Seattle, she conducted research on Mount St. Helens shortly after the volcano erupted. She received her bachelor of science degree in geology in 1980.

An accomplished athlete, she was a member of the University of Washington women's crew, which won numerous championships and placed second at the NCAA National Championship Regatta. After graduation from the university, she spent the summer working in Swedish Lapland on a highway research project. She then attended the University of Wisconsin on a fellowship, where she received her master's and doctoral degrees in geology, working on the flow and recharge of groundwater systems.

In 1992, she became a faculty member in the department of geological sciences at Ohio University and dedicated her teaching, student mentoring, research, and service to the restoration of streams and rivers in southeast Ohio.

Mary Wilder was named for her maternal great grandmother, Mary Wilder Cleaveland Coffin. The original Mary Wilder was the brigantine barque, a vessel commanded by Captain James F. Cleaveland when he met his wife-to-be, Mary Carlin, in the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii.

Mary Wilder and her husband, Douglas Harland Green, were married in the West Tisbury Congregational Church in 1982.

Like her grandmother, Dionis Coffin Riggs, she was a poet, and enjoyed the challenge of writing formal poetry.

She was active in numerous community organizations including Christ Lutheran Church, the Hocking River Commission, the Sunday Creek Watershed Group, the Monday Creek Watershed Restoration Project, the Raccoon Creek Improvement Project, the Buckeye Forest Council and the Athens Youth Hockey Association.

Survivors include her husband of 25 years, Douglas Harland Green; her mother, Cynthia Riggs; and four siblings, William Swinnerton Stoertz, James Cleaveland Stoertz, Ann Coffin Stoertz Ricchiazzi, and Robert Riggs Harris-Stoertz.

Her father, George E. Stoertz, predeceased her.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to organizations or the scholarship fund listed on the Web site meridianna.com/mary.