Women and Science

Selman Waksman was a microbiologist at Rutgers University. He won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for the discovery of streptomycin. In addition to Albert Schatz, his graduate student who worked in his lab, six women, among them four New Jersey College for Women (later Douglass College) graduates, conducted research in Waksman laboratory during this exciting time in antibiotic discovery. The NJC graduates were Elizabeth Jane Bugie, NJC '42; Doris Irasimus Jones Ralston, NJC '43; Vivian Rosenfeld Schatz, NJC '46; Hilda Christine Reilly, NJC '41. The two non-NJC women, Elizabeth Schwebel Horning and Dorris Jeanette Hutchinson, also worked alongside NJC women in the Waksman lab. Although major advances in the sciences are often collaborative work, the contributions of these young women microbiologists have remained buried in history.  Their legacy needs to be shared and celebrated at Rutgers and beyond. 

For more information, see book chapter "Women microbiologists at Rutgers in the Early Golden Age of Antibiotics" by Douglas E. Eveleigh and Joan W. Bennett; in Women in Microbiology (2018), edited by Rachel J. Whitaker and Hazel A. Barton. The book is available online and in print (Call # Douglass QR30.W655 2018).

The images below are from Quair: the Yearbook of Douglass College. 

Elizabeth Bugie graduated with a degree in zoology from NJC and continued her studies towards a M.Sc. at Rutgers while working at the Waksman lab. Bugie was the middle author on the famous paper in which the discovery of streptomycin was announced; however, her name was not included when Waksman and his assistant Albert Schatz patented the discovery. 

Vivian Rosenfeld Schatz received a B.Sc. in Agriculture from NJC in 1946. She was married to Albert Schatz, whom she had met while studying biology. After Afbert received his PhD, she accompanied him to other jobs and was a loyal supporter of her husband during his long battle to receive credit for the discovery of streptomycin. Later  Schatz become an admirable activist working towards international peace and justice. In 2017, her efforts were recognized, and she received the Peace and Justice Dove award, from the Greater Philadelphia Branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. 

Doris Irasimus Jones Ralston (1921-2011) graduated from NJC in 1943 with a degree in chemistry and received a M.Sc. from Rutgers in 1945. She continued her graduate studies, receiving her PhD from UC Berkeley in 1953. Her dissertation title is The isolation and study of variants of staphylocuccus phage P1 and its hosts staphylococcus aureus K1. She went on to a  career in research and retired from UC. Berkely in 1973. 

Hilda Christine Reilly graduated from NJC in 1941 with a degree in chemistry. She joined Waksman's group, receiving her PhD in 1946. After her stay at Rutgers, in 1952 she became a faculty member of the Sloan-Kettering Division of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences at Cornell University. In 1971, she returned to her alma mater as chair of the Department of Bacteriology to lead a new generation of young women in the sciences.