Roger Arliner Young was the first Black woman to get a PhD in Zoology. Young received her doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. She was born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1889 and grew up in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a housekeeper who had become disabled. Although her family was poor and most of their money went to caring for her mother, Roger excelled in her studies. When 17-year-old Young enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1916, she initially planned to study music. However, upon taking her first science course in general zoology in 1921, she found a mentor in the head of the Zoology department, prominent biologist Dr. Ernest Everett Just.
Even though she struggled with her grades, Young ultimately changed her major with the biologist’s encouragement. She excelled in her academics under the mentorship of the biologist. In 1923, seven years after enrolling in Howard, Roger Arliner Young graduated with a B.S. in in Biology. After graduation, Dr. Just, offered her a position as his research assistant and as assistant professor of zoology. She saved money to attend graduate school and began her Master’s degree at the University of Chicago in 1924. Young’s research focused on the structures that control salt concentrations in aquatic, single-celled animals in order to understand how living cells deal with hydration and dehydration.
She published her first scientific article, “On the Excretory Apparatus in Paramecium” in the September 1924 issue of Science — a competitive, multidisciplinary scientific journal. Young was the sole author on the research article, thus becoming the first Black woman to publish in this journal from her field. This publication was revered by leading researchers of the time in the zoology field and was an international success, symbolizing the impact of Young's scientific achievements early in her career. In 1926, Roger was invited to join Sigma Xi, an exclusive science research society with members that included Albert Einstein.
After graduating with her Master’s degree, she joined her college mentor Dr. Just at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts in 1927, one of the world’s foremost institutions for biological science. She often helped teach his classes, in addition to her own research. Her work focused on fertilization in marine organisms. Particularly, how ultraviolet radiation (i.e. the part of the light spectrum that produces high energy waves and is known to cause cancer and cataracts) affects sea urchin eggs. Young was mainly focused on the processes of hydration and dehydration in living cells. Just at one point described her as a real genius in zoology.
She stood in for Dr. Just as acting department head of the Zoology Department at Howard University, in early 1929 as Just traveled to Europe on a grant. In the fall of that year, Young decided to return to the University of Chicago in 1929 in pursuit of a doctorate degree. Unfortunately, and likely due to radiation exposure during her experiments, Young permanently damaged her eyes and struggled through her Doctorate program. Her Ph.D. had a rocky start – she didn’t pass her Qualifying Exam (i.e. an intense oral examination where faculty test a student’s research knowledge and critical thinking skills). She returned to Howard University to teach and continued working with Just at the Marine Biological Laboratory during the summers.
Her supervisor, Dr. Frank Rattray Lillie informed Young that her candidacy for a doctoral degree at Chicago was over. Even though Young’s allies in the field wrote to Lillie asking him to reconsider her dismissal, Lillie had made up his mind. This was a hard blow to her, especially at a time her mother was seriously ill. Although she did not blame her failure on the pervasive racism and sexism of the time, she did mention in a letter to her advisor Dr. Lillie that for two years she held the weight of responsibilities that were not her burden to carry. For instance, her mentor Dr. Just, placing additional research and teaching duties on her, despite her own workload. She shut herself away from her friends and family with no clue of her whereabouts.
Dr. Lillie, became alarmed and alerted the president of Howard about her mental condition. She eventually returned to Howard University, her failure at Chicago clouded her career. However, she continued teaching marine biology and zoology classes, and continue work at the Woods Hole in the summers. Her once respected position as a budding scientist was in jeopardy. Roger Arliner Young combatted a deteriorating professional relationship with her former mentor, Dr. Just. When Just returned from Europe in late 1936, he her fired her. His reason were for missing her classes and mistreating lab equipment. She alluded that the distractions of sharing a workload with Just eventually effected her career.
Now, both Chicago and Howard were closed off to her. She saw that as an opportunity to prove herself and applied to the University of Pennsylvania to commence a doctorate in 1937. She completed her Ph.D. in 1940, publishing her dissertation “The Indirect Effects of Roentgen Rays on Certain Marine Eggs” with her new mentor Dr. Lewis Heilbrunn. In 1940, Young accepted a position as assistant professor at North Carolina College for Negroes (NCC) in Durham, North Carolina. After two years, she became head of the biology department at Shaw University. She worked short contracts in Texas and at Jackson State College in Mississippi.
While living in Durham, Young became increasingly involved in the labour movement and racial justice. In addition to scientific accomplishments, she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1944. Following the 1944 murder of a Black man by a White bus driver, which city officials largely ignored, Young was elected secretary of the NAACP, Durham chapter. She also worked for the Tobacco Workers International Union and helped register voters, an organization pioneering the U.S labor movement that ensured worker safety and rights. Unfortunately, this activism was not taken well by academics in North Carolina, who barred Dr. Young from working in the state.
Yet she still went on to teach college courses in Texas and Mississippi. As if the overt racism and sexism of her era weren't enough, Young also faced personal challenges, including physical and mental health issues, possibly related to her work with radiation. Young had developed mental illness throughout the years, and when her mother died in 1953, her mental health suffered. She lost her teaching positions and taught kindergarten part-time to make ends meet. While in Mississippi in the late 1950s, she was hospitalized at the State Mental Asylum. After her release in 1962, Roger took a temporary position lecturing at Southern University until she died on November 9, 1964 in New Orleans. Throughout her life, Young broke barriers and faced incredible challenges.
Like other scientific geniuses such as Alice Ball and Nikola Tesla who suffered from their work, her legacy is strong and lasting. Dr. Young’s career demonstrates incredible weight of being both a Black person in a time of rampant racism and a woman striving to succeed in a sexist field dominated by men. Her story demonstrates that one does not have to start their career thinking they will be a scientist. It demonstrates that grades are not the bellwether of being a great and influential scientist. It demonstrates that scientists are complex people that bring intersectional identities and personal struggles into the laboratory, but that doesn’t make them any less capable or successful.