Biology: Diversity in Biology
Infusing Diversity in the Curriculum Project
So much of the biology studied in introductory classes deals with
the accomplishments of a small group of people: white males. There are
several reasons for this, including the exclusion of women from
academe for many years. This has changed. Please visit the links below
and answer a short series of questions pertaining to the significance
of achievements by the following people:
Mary Anning
(1799-1847) During her lifetime Mary Anning, an untrained
Englishwoman who supported her family by fossil collecting, made a number
of significant discoveries, including the first ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Despite her beimng hailed as "the greatest fossilist ever",
her life has been made the subject of several books and articles, yet
little of her life is really known. This website at the Museum of Paleontology
and the University of California at Berkeley offers a short biography
and listing of her contributions to the early days of paleontology.
(URL: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html)
and the birth of geology This site, from the Philpot
Museum, describes Mary Anning's work as a fossil collector., along with
quoites from her as well as about her. (URL:
Finder of Fossils This page, part of a website about
women in sciernce, offers a short biography of Mary. (URL:
Rachel Carson
Carson This weblink from the Ecology Hall of fame
recounts, briefly, the life of the author of Silent Spring, the book said to have launched the ecological
movement. (URL: http://www.ecotopia.org/ehof/carson/bio.html)
Jill Bargonetti-Chavarria
Dr. Bargonetti-Chavarria is one of the few contemporary minority scientists
on this list, and also among the youngest. In 1997 President Clinton
awarded her the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists
and Engineers, which is the highest governmental honor bestowed on scientists
early in their research careers. Her research has dealt with P53, which
is a gene that assists in the suppression of tumor cells. In addition
to being an accomplished researcher she is recognized for her teaching
skills, an uncommon combination in modern academe. (URL:
Baruj Benacerraf
Benacerraf Autobiography This autobiographical sketch
details the life and career of the Venezulean-born co-winner of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1980 "for their discoveries
concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that
regulate immunological reactions". (URL:
Benacerraf '42 This short interview with Dr. Benacerraf
stresses the role of a college eager to help a young student. (URL:
George Washington Carver
Washington Carver 1864-1943 This biography of one
of the outstanding accomplishments of a man who would revolutionize
agriculture and its economics in the southern United States, despite
being born a slave and being expelled from school in Kansas due to his
African heritage. (URL:
Washington Carver This page, from a website about
the triumph of African Americans, provides a slightly different perspective
on Crver. (URL: http://www.phillyburbs.com/BHM/carver.shtml)
Charles R. Drew
R. Drew Dr. Drew invented the technique to preserve
blood after it was drawn from th body, in essence making battlefield
transfusions possible, as well as blood banks. An All-American football
player in his youth, Drew died after an automibile accident in 1950.
The white-only hospital closest to the scene of the accident refused
to treat him. (URL: http://www.phillyburbs.com/BHM/drew.shtml)
Sylvia Earle
Earle, Ph.D. Sylvia earle, a recent MCCCD Honors Speaker,
delivers powerful lectures about her passion for the sea. Highlights
of her career include the leading of an all women oceanographic expedition
(Tektite II, Mission 6 in 1970) and is presently explorer-in-residence
at the National Geographic Society. (URL:
Dr. Carlos J. Finlay
J. Finlay Biographical Notes This page, part of the
Finlay online site, captures the life ofthe Cuban-born crusader against
Yellow Fever. (URL: http://www.finlay-online.com/welcome/whowasdrfinlay.htm)
For more information on Yellow Fever, Visit Yellow Fever and the Reed
Commission at http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/yelfev/tabcon.html.
Rosalind Franklin
Elise Franklin, Pioneer Molecular Biologist This page,
part of a website about women in sciernce, offers a short biography
of Rosalind Franklin and her seminal contribution to the study of DNA
structure, as well as other significant discoveries made in her brief
life. (URL: http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html)
Rosa Smith Eigenmann
Eigenmann "First Woman Ichthyologist of Any Accomplishments"
This page, part of a website about women in sciernce, offers a short
biography of Rosa Smith Eigenmann, who before and after her marriage,
managed to publish a series of papers on fish. She is notable for the
quote: "in science as everywhere else in the domain of thought
woman should be judged by the same standard as her brother. Her work
must not simply be well done for a woman." (URL:
Fabian Garcia
Garcia, Ph.D. Outstanding Biotechnologist Dr. Garcia
was a Mexican American agronomist who developed an insect-resistant
variety of chile (chile number 9). (URL:
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Crowfoot Hodgkin, A Founder of Protein Crystallography
This page, part of a website about women in sciernce, offers a short
biography of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the winner of the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1964. She was a founder of protein crystallography,
and with her mentor, J.D. Bernal, the first to successfully apply X-ray
diffraction to crystals of biological substances, beginning with pepsin
in 1934. Her contributions to crystallography included the structures
of cholesterol, lactoglobulin, ferritin, tobacco mosaic virus, penicillin,
vitamin B-12, and insulin (a solution on which she worked for 34 years)
(URL: http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/hodgkin.htmll)
Prize in Chemistry 1964 This page from the Nobel e-Museum,
details her work, as well as a detailed biography.
Ernest Everett Just
Everett Just, Ph.D., Outstanding Developmental Biologist
This brief biography chronicles some of the accomplishments and alludes
to the roadblocks placed in the path of a remarkable scientist. (URL:
Everett Just: Zoologist, Biologist, Physiologist, Research Scientist
This site provides a more detailed biographical sketch, including honors,
and other material detailing the career of Dr. Just. (URL:
Barbara McClintock
Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1983 Barbara McClintock's
life work was understanding the genetics of corn. Early in her career,
she was the first to describe crossing over during meiosis in plants.
At the peak of her career, she realized that genes were not immobile
on the chromosomes, but could move and rearrange themselves with startling
consequences. Until rediscovered in fruit flies (almost 20 years later)
and many other organisms. This site, run by the Nobel e-Museum contains
the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1983 Press Release, Barbara
McClintock's Autobiography, her Nobel Lecture, images of her Swedish
Nobel Stamp, and an in memoriam essay by Howard Green. (URL:
McClintock Papers This site is the firsat to offer
laboratory notes, correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, lecture notes,
photographs, charts, illustrations, and audiovisual materials for a
woman, Barbara McClintock. (URL:
Ruth Ella Moore
Moore Dr. Moore was the first African American woman
to receive a Ph.D. in bacteriology (from The Ohio State University,
in 1933). She had a long career in various teaching, research, and administrative
posts at Howard University. (URL:
Severo Ochoa
Ochoa &endash; Biography This page details the
biography of the Spanish-born cowinner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology
or Medicine for1959 "for their discovery of the mechanisms in the
biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid".
(URL: http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1959/ochoa-bio.html)
Roger Arliner Young
Arliner Young Lifelong Struggle of a Zoologist Lifelong
Struggle of a Zoologist Roger Arliner Young was the first African-American
woman to receive a doctorate in zoology, as recounted at this short
biography and highlighting her accomplishments and difficulties. (URL:
Internet Resources
Below are a few of the websites that provide links and other
useful information about minority scientists.
Science Website This site is a clearinghouse for streaming
video (warning, you might want a fast connection) as well as short biographies
on all three principals for ewhom the site is named, as well as bios
of other minority scientists. (URL:
of Women in Science This extensive, exhaustive site
chronicles the contributions of women to science. The biography section
offers (for the most part) short capsules of the accomplishment of many
women I have never heard of! (
of Science: African Americans in the Sciences This
site at Princeton University offers an extensive set of biographies
of past, present, and possibly future African American leaders in science.
(URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/faces.html)
Selected References
Dodson, Guy, Jenny P. Glusker, and David Sayre (eds.). 1981. Structural
Studies on Molecules of Biological Interest: A Volume in Honour of Professor
Dorothy Hodgkin. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Kass-Simon, G., Patricia Farnes,
and Deborah Nash (eds.). 1990. Women of Science: Righting the Record.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Manning, Kenneth R. 1989."Roger
Arliner Young, Scientist," Sage 6: 3-7.
Manning, Kenneth R. 1983. Black
Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just. New York: Oxford
University Press
McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. 1993.
Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous
Discoveries. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group.
McMurray, Emily J. (ed.). 1995.
Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists. 4 vols., Detroit: Gale Research,
Inc.
Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey. 1986. Women
in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century (A Biographical
Dictionary with Annotated Bibliography). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Rossiter, Margaret W. 1982. Women
Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rossiter, Margaret W. 1995. Women
Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Sayre, Anne. 1975. Rosalind Franklin
and DNA. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Torrens, Hugh. 1995. "Mary
Anning (1799-1847) of Lyme: 'the greatest fossilist the world ever knew',"
British Journal for the History of Science 25:257-284.
Use for educational puirposes is encouraged. If you wish to
add a website, or know of a person who you would like to see added to
this list, please email me.
Email: nolvyhindarto@gmail.com
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar