Dr. Mary Logan Reddick
Neuroembryologist
Mary Logan Reddick was born in 1914 in Atlanta. After graduating from high school early, she attended Spelman College at 15 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in science in 1935.
The Rockefeller Foundation awarded Reddick a fellowship in 1937. The award allowed Reddick to pursue a master’s degree in science at Atlanta University. Reddick’s master’s thesis centered on understanding how a fertilized egg becomes a complex organism. This research gave a further understanding of human fetal development. At 21, in the same year that she obtained her master’s degree, Reddick became a biology instructor at Spelman. In 1939, she began teaching biology at nearby Morehouse College, becoming the first female biology instructor at the school.
Reddick received a second Rockefeller education fellowship and attended Radcliffe College, now a part of Harvard University. At Radcliffe, Reddick’s research focused on tissue transplantation and transplanting tissues and nerve cell differentiation in chick embryos to gain insight into how much the brain depends on connections with adjacent tissues. She earned a second master’s in 1943 and a Ph.D. in 1944 at Radcliffe.
After her fellowship ended, Reddick returned to Morehouse to teach. While at Morehouse, she became the first female full professor and the first female biology department chair. In 1952, Reddick became the first African American woman to receive a Ford Foundation science fellowship. With the fellowship, she traveled to England and studied embryology at Cambridge University. Following her return to the U.S., Reddick became a faculty member at Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University, a position she held until her death in 1966.
Resource”: Atlanta History