Marie Maynard Daly, (April 16, 1921 – October 28, 2003) was an American biochemist, and the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry, earned in 1947 from Columbia University in New York. Daly also made important contributions in four areas of research: the chemistry of histones (highly basic proteins around DNA), protein synthesis, the relationships between cholesterol and hypertension, and creatine’s uptake by muscle cells.
Daly attended Hunter College High School, a laboratory high school for girls run by Hunter College faculty, where she was also encouraged to pursue chemistry. She then enrolled in Queens College, a small, fairly new school in Flushing, New York. She lived at home to save money and graduated magna cum laude from Queens College with her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1942.
Due to labor shortages and the need for scientists to support the war effort, in 1942, Daly was able to garner fellowships to study at New York University and Columbia University for her master’s and Ph.D. degrees, respectively.
Daly worked as a laboratory assistant at Queens College while studying at New York University for her master’s degree in chemistry, which she completed in 1943. She became a chemistry tutor at Queens College and enrolled in the doctoral program at Columbia University, where she was supervised by Mary Letitia Caldwell, for a Ph. D. thesis, “A Study of the Products Formed By the Action of Pancreatic Amylase on Corn Starch”, and receiving her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1947. She was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Columbia University and the first African American woman to receive a chemistry Ph.D. in the United States.
Daly worked as a physical science instructor at Howard University, from 1947 to 1948 while simultaneously conducting research under the direction of Herman Branson, a Black pioneer in biophysics. After being awarded an American Cancer Society grant to support her postdoctoral research, she joined the Rockefeller Institute, which studied the cell nucleus and its constituents. This was the start of a seven-year research program at the Rockefeller Institute of Medicine, where Daly examined how proteins are constructed in the body. At the time, the structure and function of DNA were not yet understood.
Marie photographed working in her lab in the 1960s. Image credit: Archives of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Ted Burrows, photographer
In 1955, Daly began working in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1955, studying arterial metabolism. She continued this work as an assistant professor of biochemistry and of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in 1960. From 1958 to 1963, she also served as an investigator for the American Heart Association. In 1971 she was promoted to associate professor at Columbia University.
In 1975, Daly was one of 30 minority women scientists to attend a conference examining the challenges facing minority women in STEM fields. The conference was held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This resulted in the publication of the report, The Double Bind: The Price of Being a Minority Woman in Science (1976) which made recommendations for recruiting and retaining minority women scientists.
Daly was a member of the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences for two years. She was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Cancer Society. Daly was designated as a career scientist by the Health Research Council of the City of New York.
Daly continually published articles in her fields of study from 1949 to 1985 and retired in 1986 from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1988 she established a scholarship for African American chemistry and physics majors at Queens College in memory of her father.
Daly’s father, Ivan C. Daly, had immigrated from the British West Indies, worked as a postal clerk and married Helen Page of Washington, D.C. They lived in New York City, and Daly was born and raised in Corona, Queens. She often visited her maternal grandparents in Washington, where she read about scientists and their achievements in her grandfather’s extensive library. She was especially impressed by Paul de Kruif’s, The Microbe Hunters, a work which influenced her decision to become a scientist.
Daly’s interest in science was also influenced by her father, who had attended Cornell University with the intention of becoming a chemist but had been unable to complete his education due to a lack of funds. Daly would thus complete her father’s ambition by majoring in chemistry, thus, in 1988, she started a Queens College scholarship fund in his honor to assist minority students majoring in chemistry or physics.
In 1999, she was recognized by the National Technical Association as one of the top 50 women in Science, Engineering and Technology.
Daly married and took the name Marie Maynard Daly Clark. Her husband died before her, and they did not have any children. She died on October 28, 2003, at age 82.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Maynard_Daly
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