Image: In Honor of Black History Month we are celebrating scientists whose work contributed to the foundation of Plant biology and the diverse research conducted in our department. One of these scientists is Marie Taylor Clark, who received her B.S in 1933 and her M.S. in Botany in 1935 at Howard University. She went on to be the first women to receive her Ph.D. (1941) in science at Fordham University, and was the first African American women to receive a Ph.D. in Botany. For her dissertation on “The influence of definite photoperiods upon the growth and development of initiated floral primordia.” she studied the influence of light on plant growth. More specifically she studied the effects of light exposure on the flowers of scarlet sage (Salvia splendens), Mexican aster (Cosmos bipinnatus), and sulfur cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus) and found that 10 hours of natural light resulted in maximum flower growth for scarlet sage, and the largest flowers in Mexican aster. Sulfur cosmos produced the largest flowers when exposed to 10 hours of natural light + 6 hours of artificial light. Dr. Clark dedicated her life to education, first teaching at Cardoza High School. Mary joined the Botany Department at Howard University in 1945 and served as Department head, after serving in the Army Red Cross in New Guinea during World War II. While at Howard, Dr. Clark was heavily involved in the design and construction of a new biology building, which included a botanical greenhouse laboratory. In the 1950s – 1960s she started NSF funded summer science institutes for high school science teachers where she implemented new methods at the time for teaching science, such as using plants and light-microscopes to study cells. Her success in these programs was recognized by President Lyndon B. Johnson when he requested that she expand her work overseas on an international level. References Celebrating Black History Month: Marie Clark Taylor. (2021, Feb 8). Desert Botanical Garden. https://dbg.org/marie-clark-taylor/ Clark, M. B. (1941). The Influence of Definite Photoperiods Upon the Growth and Development of Initiated Floral Primoridia. Dinsmore, D. (2019, March 11). Woman of Firsts: Marie Clark Taylor. Women in Horticulture. https://www.womeninhorticulture.com/post/woman-of-firsts-marie-clark-taylor
