Marilyn Ramenofsky

Marilyn Ramenofsky (born August 20, 1946) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder in the 400-meter swim. After 2008, she worked as a researcher at the University of California at Davis, studying the physiology and behavior of bird migration. She previously taught and performed research at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Personal
Ramenofsky was born one of four children on August 20, 1946, in Phoenix, Arizona, to Elizabeth Lantin Ramenofsky and Dr. Abraham Isadore Ramenofsky, who would act as team physician and travel with the American Swim team to the Maccabiah Games in Israel in September 1961. Marilyn's mother Elizabeth was born in Globe, Arizona, and married Abraham Ramenofsky on June 7, 1936, in Los Angeles.

Both of Marilyn's parents were graduates of the University of Illinois, where her mother Elizabeth graduated in 1930. Dr. Ramenofsky attended Medical School there, interned in Chicago, and began his practice in LaSalle in 1932 where he had been born. After Dr. Ramenofsky completed Air Force Service in WWII, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in the 1940's where Elizabeth had family and ancestry.

Coaches
Marilyn swam with Phoenix's well-known Dick Smith Swim School during her early swimming career. Smith, an inductee of the Swimming Hall of Fame, served as the Olympic Coach for the Women's Diving Team in 1964. Later, she swam for the Arizona Desert Rats, an exceptional AAU Swim team that was coached by Nancy Schlueter and her husband Walt. The Schlueters would both coach Arizona collegiate swimming, and train Olympians in their careers. Marilyn noted in interviews that "her rapid rise to the international spotlight was largely due to her training...with legendary swim coach Walter Schlueter", and that "suddenly my times were dropping and I was shooting to beat the people on top."

AAU All American
She was named to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) All-America women's swimming teams in 1962, 1963 and 1964. International Swimming Hall of Fame national director Buck Dawson wrote: "[Ramenofsky] was the first female to swim a perfect freestyle stroke."

1964 Olympic trial 400 meter world record
Ramenofsky set new world-record times for the 400-meter freestyle three times in 1964, including once at the U.S. Olympic Trials, reducing the record to 4:39.5 on August 31 in New York. She had just turned 18. Though Marilyn had already broken the former world record, her best time at the Astoria Pool in the finals of the Olympic Trials in August 1964 sliced five seconds off the former World Record of 4:45.5 set in 1960. She also set a new U.S. record in the 220-yard freestyle in 1964, at 2:17.3.

1964 Olympic Silver medal
She represented the United States at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. She received a silver medal for her second-place performance of 4:44.6 that October in the women's 400-meter freestyle. Marilyn's 4:44.6 broke the existing Olympic record of 4:47.7, but she was edged out, finishing only a second behind American teammate Ginny Duenkel who had a time of 4:43.3.

Marilyn had been the clear favorite to win the 400, as her Olympic Trial time would have taken the gold. Duenkel's winning Olympic time for the gold of 4:43:3, was nearly four seconds behind Marilyn's World Record time of 4:39.5, set two months earlier at the finals of the Olympic trials in New York on August 31.

Maccabiah Games
At the 1961 Maccabiah Games she won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay and a bronze in the 400-meter freestyle. At the 1965 Maccabiah Games she won gold medals in both the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyles.

After attending Central High in Phoenix, and competing in the Tokyo Olympics, she attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, and trained with the Pomona College men's swim team because the college had no women's team. She focused on more than swimming at Pomona, and wrote a thesis on algae structures that became the start of a career in zoology and academia.

While swimming with the Arizona Desert Rats after her Olympic Silver medal, Marilyn and three team mates set the national record for the 440-yard freestyle relay in August 1966, with a time of 4:18:07 at the Arizona Senior Invitational.

Coaching swimming
Marilyn was later involved in coaching for numerous teams at the high school and college level, even helping to lead the University of Texas to the state championships in 1971 while she was completing her Masters in Austin.

Life after swimming
Ramenofsky, who is Jewish, was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. She married Dr. John C. Wingfield at South Mountain Park outside Phoenix, Arizona, in November 1979. Wingfield was a Zoologist and neurobiologist who had completed a Doctorate from the University College of North Wales in 1973. Like Marilyn, he would later perform research at the University of California Davis, and collaborate with her on some of her research. Dr. Wingfield's research at UC Davis focused on neural pathways for environmental signals relating to seasonality, mechanisms of coping with environmental stress (allostasis), and the social modulation of hormone secretion. His work has had parallels with Marilyn's own research.

Academic career
Ramenofsky received her Bachelors in 1969 in Botany and Biology from Pomona College, then completed her Masters of Science in 1972 in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her Doctorate in Zoology, completed in 1982, was received from the University of Washington, Seattle. She began her academic career serving as a Professor at Vassar College for three years, then taught for twenty years at the University of Washington until 2008, when she began teaching and research at the University of California, Davis. She has published numerous peer reviewed articles on the physiology and behavior of migratory birds, most notably the white-crowned sparrow. Much of her research has focused on how glucocorticoids (steroid hormones) may orchestrate the suite of life history changes associated with bird migration.

Continuing at UC Davis since 2008, she has most recently studied the migration of birds, and changes in their muscle physiology during stages of migration.