April 29: Florence Rena Sabin

Florence Rena Sabin became the first woman elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on this date in 1925. She was also the first woman to hold a full professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the first woman to head a department (Cellular Studies) at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Her medical research focused on the lymphatic system, blood vessels and cells, and tuberculosis; she also designed her native state of Colorado’s public health system, at the request of the governor, in the 1940s.

“I hope my studies may be an encouragement to other women, especially to young women, to devote their lives to the larger interests of the mind.” —Florence Rena Sabin