1889-1964 Roger Arliner Young, Zoologist

contributed to blackpast.org march 7, 2000 by: SARA DIAZ

photo courtesy Univ. Missouri-Kansas City Student Newspaper

"Roger Arliner Young, born in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania in 1889, was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Zoology and to conduct research at the prestigious Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Young conducted research on the anatomy of paramecium and the effects of radiation on sea urchin eggs.

Young enrolled at Howard University at the age of twenty-seven, intending to major in music. After struggling through a biology course with African American biologist Ernest Everett Just, she changed her major to that subject, earning a B.S. in 1923. Just hired her as an assistant professor at Howard while she attended graduate school. The next year, Young enrolled at the University of Chicago in Illinois part-time and published her first article on paramecium which achieved international recognition. She received her M.S in Zoology in 1926 and was elected to the honor society Sigma Xi.

(xHistory xPOC xBlack xAfricanAmerican xWomen xUSA xZoologist xMarine xInvertebrate xSpecies)