Taylor, Sister Monica (1877-1968: biologist, senior lecturer in Science, Notre Dame Training College, Glasgow, Scotland)

Sister Monica Taylor was born in 1877 at St Helen's, Lancashire, England. The key influences in her development as a scientist were her father, a science teacher, her uncle, an industrial chemist, and her cousin, Sir Hugh Taylor, at one time Dean of Princeton Graduate School. She trained as a teacher at Mount Pleasant Teacher Training College in Liverpool, England from 1896 until 1898 , before entering the noviciate of the religious Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Belgium. In 1900, she made her full religious profession and returned to England, before being transferred to Notre Dame College of Education , Dowanhill, Glasgow in 1901 . Permission to attend classes at the University of Glasgow was not granted and so Sister Monica began study towards an external degree of the University of London, but was unable to progress further than the intermediate stage due to inadequate laboratory facilities at Dowanhill. She was eventually granted permission to do laboratory work in the Zoology Department of the University of Glasgow, provided she did not attend lectures and was chaperoned by another Sister at all times. However, impressed by Sister Monica's intellectual abilities, Professor Graham Kerr urged that she be permitted to attend lectures, accompanied by her chaperon, and permission for this was eventually granted. After obtaining her degree, Professor Kerr also encouraged her to combine research towards a higher degree with the teaching of science at the college. Sister Monica was awarded a DSc by the University of Glasgow in 1917 , and held the position of Head of the Science Department at Notre Dame College until her retiral in 1946 . Throughout her career, and after her retiral, she combined teaching with serious research, making a particularly significant contribution in the field of amoebic zoology, for which she gained a number of honours. The University of Glasgow conferred an honorary LLD in 1953 , in recognition of her eminence in science, being recognised as "a protozoologist of international distinction". Sister Monica died on 12 June 1968 .