Hope Hibbard

Last updated
Hope Hibbard
BornDecember 18, 1893
Altoona, Pennsylvania
DiedMay 12, 1988(1988-05-12) (aged 94)
NationalityAmerican

Hope Hibbard (December 18, 1893- May 12, 1988) was an American biologist, cytologist, zoologist, and professor of zoology. [1] [2] [3] Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, she conducted research in the fields of histology and marine biology, utilizing organisms such as silkworms, limpets, earthworms, and frogs. Hibbard dedicated most of her life to education as a professor at multiple institutions, including Bryn Mawr College, Elmira College, and Oberlin College. She received accolades for her research and academic merits, such as the Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship and the Adelia A. Field Johnston Professor of Zoology. Hibbard is not only remembered for her intellectual endeavors, but for her support of women in the scientific sphere and her involvement in associations that forwarded female roles in science and research, such as the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

Contents

Early life and education

Hibbard was born to parents Mary (né Scofield) Hibbard and Herbert Wade Hibbard in 1893. Her father worked as a mechanical engineering professor. [1]

Hibbard entered college at the University of Missouri, where she completed her undergraduate degree in zoology in 1916. She subsequently studied to earn her master's degree, also in zoology, from the University of Missouri in 1918. From there, she elected to complete her Ph. D in zoology from Bryn Mawr College while additionally serving as a demonstrator for Bryn Mawr's biology department until 1921. [2] The doctoral research conducted her Ph.D. in zoology focused on the fertilization of sea urchin eggs. [3]

After accepting a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctoral degree, Hibbard began her occupational journey as a professor at Elmira College. She first served as an associate professor, remaining at Elmira for four years. [2] In the year 1926, Hibbard was honored with the Sarah Berliner Fellowship, a one-year educational opportunity provided by the AAUW which allowed her to study and work as a labarotory preparateur at the University of Paris. During that time, Hibbard's laboratory position centered around comparative anatomy techniques, which allowed her to conduct research of her own. [2] After her fellowship ended, Hibbard was able to extend her European education for one more year with the support of the International Education Board. Her two years of education and research concerning the oogenesis of frog eggs consummated a doctorate of science from the Sorbonne. [1]

Academia

Upon her return to the United States in 1928, Hibbard accepted the position of assistant professor in the zoology department at Oberlin College in Ohio. She devoted the next 34 years of her life at the college, occupying several different positions and titles. For 33 of her 34 years at Oberlin, she was the only female faculty member of the zoology department. [1] [2] Hibbard was promoted to an associate professor after serving just three years at Oberlin, and in an additional three years, she rose to the rank of full professor. This series of advancements in her professorship was almost unheard of for women during Hibbard's time; the standard progression of women professors was a drawn-out process, and female professors were commonly made to either wait for the completion an installed interval of time determined by international guidelines before rising in rank or remain at their current rank. Her steady elevation in the zoology department was therefore unorthodox in her day and age. [2]

Hibbard's research conducted while at Oberlin concentrated on a variety of fields, including cytology, histology, and marine biology. Her histological studies pinpointed research concerning organs and tissues of several marine invertebrates, including limpets, earthworms, silkworms, and squid. Her cytological research was conducted on the Golgi apparatus. [2] She additionally worked as a trustee at the Woods Holes Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts during her professorship at Oberlin. [3]

in 1952, Hibbard received the title of Adelia A. Field Johnston Professor of Zoology, an esteemed promotion her department. Two years later, after 24 years of teaching at Oberlin College, Hibbard mean her four-year term as department chair. [2]

Advocacy for women in science

Hibbard is viewed as a crusader for women in the scientific sphere. She held strong opinions about the untapped abilities of women due to both perpetuated stereotypes initialized by men and additional self-deprecating tendencies, and she utilized her membership in several academic assemblies to express her viewpoints. [2] Hibbard served as an avid member of the AAUW and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among others, [3] and wrote several discourses in which she urged women to integrate marriage and professional endeavors within science rather than abandoning one from the other. [2]

Examples of Hibbard's papers include "Vocations for Women and How College Can Prepare Them" (1935), "The Life of Oberlin Women Today" (1937), and "Women in Research." In these multiple dialogues, Hibbard communicated her desire for women to overcome social boundaries concerning their position in science. She worked to encourage women to forge their paths independent of discouraging social views and to mold their own journey as both intellectuals and spouses, as opposed to exclusively one of the two. [2]

Hibbard additionally spearheaded the Oberlin chapter of League of Women Voters while a professor at the institution. [3]

Death and legacy

Hibbard died at the age of 94 in 1988, one year after becoming an honorary life member of the AAUW. Oberlin College honored her memory by establishing the Hope Hibbard Memorial Award shortly following her death. [2]

Related Research Articles

Nettie Stevens American geneticist (1861–1912)

Nettie Maria Stevens was an American geneticist who discovered sex chromosomes. In 1905, soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's paper on genetics in 1900, she observed that male mealworms produced two kinds of sperm, one with a large chromosome and one with a small chromosome. When the sperm with the large chromosome fertilized eggs, they produced female offspring, and when the sperm with the small chromosome fertilized eggs, they produced male offspring. The pair of sex chromosomes that she studied later became known as the X and Y chromosomes.

Helen Taft Manning

Helen Herron Taft Manning was an American professor of history and college dean. She was the middle child and only daughter of U.S. President William Howard Taft and his wife Helen Herron.

Alice Middleton Boring was an American biologist, zoologist, and herpetologist, who taught biology and did research in the United States and China.

Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler American mathematician

Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler was an American mathematician. She is best known for early work on linear algebra in infinite dimensions, which has later become a part of functional analysis.

Maria Luisa (Weecha) Crawford is an American geologist/petrologist. She was born on July 18, 1939, in Beverly, Massachusetts. In 1960, Crawford received a bachelor of arts degree in geology from Bryn Mawr College, located in Pennsylvania. 5 years later, she received her doctorate degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she met her husband, William Crawford. Shortly after graduating, Crawford became employed by Bryn Mawr College in the department of geology. Throughout her career, she had a wide range of interests. She was known to be one of the first scientists to use the electron micro probe on metamorphic rocks. Crawford has also been interested in lunar petrology and geochemistry. In this field, she researched the crystallization of lava that seemed to fill craters on the moon.

Marie Gertrude Rand Ferree was an American research scientist who is known for her extensive body of work about color perception. Her work included "mapping the retina for its perceptional abilities", "developing new instruments and lamps for ophthalmologists", and "detection and measurement of color blindness". Rand, with LeGrand H. Hardy and M. Catherine Rittler, developed the HRR pseudoisochromatic color test.

Rhonda Jo Hughes is an American mathematician, the Helen Herrmann Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College.

Eleanora Knopf American geologist

Eleanora Frances Bliss Knopf was an American geologist who worked for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and did research in the Appalachians during the first two decades of the twentieth century. She studied at Bryn Mawr College, and earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry, a master's degree in geology, and a Ph.D. in geology in 1912. She was the first American geologist to use the new technique of petrography which she pioneered in her life's work - the study of Stissing Mountain.

Eleanor Bontecou was an American lawyer, civil rights advocate, law professor and government official. Bontecou served as an attorney and investigator for both the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. War Department. She also worked as a professor at two universities. During her career, Bontecou achieved national fame for her work in the civil liberties and women's rights movements.

Mary Hamilton Swindler American archaeologist

Mary Hamilton Swindler was an American archaeologist, classical art scholar, author, and professor of classical archaeology, most notably at Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. Swindler also founded the Ella Riegel Memorial Museum at Bryn Mawr College. She participated in various archaeological excavations in Greece, Egypt, and Turkey. The recipient of several awards and honors for her research, Swindler's seminal work was Ancient Painting, from the Earliest Times to the Period of Christian Art (1929).

Sally Peris Hughes-Schrader (1895–1984) was a professor of zoology at Duke University, 1962-1966.

Phoebe S. Leboy American biochemist and advocate for women in science

Phoebe Starfield Leboy was an American biochemist and advocate for women in science.

Esther Byrnes American zoologist

Esther Fussell Byrnes (1867–1946) was an American biologist and science teacher. She was one of the first women copepodologists—scientists who study copepods. She was a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, as well as the American Society of Naturalists.

Marie Litzinger American mathematician

Marie Litzinger was an American mathematician known for her research in number theory, homogeneous polynomials, and modular arithmetic.

Cora Jipson Beckwith was an American zoologist who was a researcher and professor at Vassar College in New York.

Margaret Shove Morriss American academic historian

Margaret Shove Morriss was an American academic historian, She was the Dean of Women in charge of Pembroke College in Brown University from 1923 to 1950.

Muborak Umarovna Mansurova was a Tajikistani biologist.

Agnes L. Rogers Scottish educator and educational psychologist

Agnes Low Rogers was a Scottish educator and educational psychologist.

Adelia Field Johnston American educator

Adelia Antoinette Field Johnston was an American educator and college administrator. She was the first female faculty member at Oberlin College, where she taught history, and the school's Dean of Women from 1870 to 1900.

Orlie Pell American pacifist

Orlie Pell was an American pacifist, philosopher, and activist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Commire, Klezmer, A., D. (2007). Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages. Detroit: Yorkin Publications. p. 887. ISBN   9780787676766.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Oakes, Elizabeth (2007). Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Detroit: Yorkin Publications. p. 872. ISBN   978-1438118826.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Wayne, Tiffany (2011). American Women of Since 1900. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 508–509. ISBN   978-1598841589.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.