Wang Hao-t’ing (using the Chinese naming order with family name first) was a Chinese artist who was commissioned to accompany the American Museum of Natural History’s (AMNH) Third Asiatic Expedition in 1921-1926 to document frogs, snakes, salamanders, and lizards in the region. Hao-t’ing painted beautiful, strikingly realistic watercolor paintings of Continue Reading
Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat: Cytogeneticist, Sugarcane Revolutionizing Botanist
K. Janaki Ammal was born in Kerala, India on November 4th, 1897. One of the first women in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in botany, she went on to develop new hybrids of sugarcane. After shifting here focus to research, she published The Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants.
Joyce Allan – Australian Conchologist and Artist
Illustrator, conchologist (i.e., one who studies mollusk shells) and museum curator Joyce K. Allan (1896-1966) was the first woman to be employed as a scientist by the Australian Museum and the first elected female fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. A Fascination with Shells Allan was Continue Reading
Dr. Margery C. Carlson: Botanist, Professor, and Conservationist
“Every collector hopes that he will be able to bring home some species unknown to science, never before described or even given a botanical name.” – Margery Carlson¹ An Auspicious Beginning Dr. Margery C. Carlson was born in November 21, 1892 in Arthur, Illinois.²,³ She was named after the marguerite Continue Reading
Yvette Borup Andrews: First Asiatic Zoological Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History
In 1891, Yvette Borup was born to Mary Brandreth and Col. Henry Borup in Paris, France¹. Though both parents were American, Borup would spent the majority of her early life in Europe, as her father was a military attache in France, then later Germany. During her time in Germany, Borup Continue Reading
Libbie Henrietta Hyman: Invertebrate Zoologist
Libbie Hyman was one of the most influential vertebrate and invertebrate zoologists of all time. She single-handedly wrote and illustrated an unprecedented six-volume, 4,000-page treatise on approximately 1 million invertebrates. “ …Whole academies in more than one country have attempted to do what she has done. The debt of every zoologist Continue Reading
Helen Cowen Gunsaulus: Curator and Ethnologist
Helen Cowen Gunsaulus earned her Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.) at the University of Chicago in 1908. She went on to be curator at several important institutions in Chicago, including as a curator at the Field Museum. Childhood and Education Gunsaulus was born in Maryland in April 1886. She was the Continue Reading
Olive Muriel Pink: Artist, Conservationist, Aboriginal Rights Activist
Olive Muriel Pink would spent a decade conducting research on the eastern Arrernte of Alice Springs and the Warlpiri of the Tanami region. She grew to be a passionate activist for aboriginal rights (in fact, historian Julie Marcus suggests that Pink ultimately left academia because she felt it was not serving her activist goals).
Elsie Naumburg: Expert Ornithologist
At a time when Europe dominated ornithology and America was only just beginning to study birds and build museums, Naumberg helped to shape our understanding of ornithology for generations to come.