Hubbard, Ruth, 1924-....

Biologist and feminist Ruth Hubbard was born in Vienna, Austria. In 1938 her family emigrated to the United States. She graduated from Radcliffe College (A.B. 1944, Ph. D. 1950), and served at Harvard University as a research fellow (beginning in 1953), research associate (beginning in 1958), lecturer (beginning in 1968), and as professor (from 1974 until her retirement in 1990). She was the first woman to be awarded a tenured biology professorship at Harvard. Known for her work in the biochemistry and photochemistry of vision in vertebrates and invertebrates, Hubbard also wrote on the politics of health care and on the sociology of science, documenting the ways in which scientists ask and answer questions are shaped by their sex, race, and class, and by the social institutions in which they operate. Hubbard was the author of more than 150 articles and the editor and author of many books including Exploding the Gene Myth, with Elijah Wald (1993). She was married to George Wald, Harvard professor and Nobel laureate, and was active in the anti-war movement and other progressive causes.