Nettie Maria Stevens (jul 7, 1861 – may 4, 1912)

Description:

Nettie Maria Stevens (July 7, 1861 – May 4, 1912 AD) , Geneticist

Life:
Nettie Maria Stevens was born in Vermont. Nettie’s father worked as a carpenter and earned enough money to provide Nettie with an education through high school. She and her sister were 2 of 3 women who graduated from Westford Academy between 1872 and 1883. After her graduation she taught students zoology, physiology, mathematics, English, and Latin at a high school in New Hampshire. After teaching, Stevens decided to continue her education and received her B.A. and M.A. in Biology, from the newly established Stanford University. Stevens’ continued with her Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr University under the mentorship of world renowned geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. After obtaining her Ph.D., Stevens was awarded a research assistantship at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in 1904–1905. Netties would then return to Bryn Mawr and continue her days as a researcher until her death.

Contributions to Science:
Nettie Stevens discovered the sex chromsomes, X and Y, that is, the chromosomes that make you biologically a male or female. This work began in 1905, during Stevens' post-doctoral years where she received funding for research on heredity related to Mendel's laws, specifically sex determination. Interestingly, Mendel’s work had only been recently rediscovered five years prior to her receiving the grant. She studied the sex/germ cells from aphids to determine if there were any differences. Ultimately, the model organism Stevens’ identified sex chromsomes in was meal worms. When male worms fertilized eggs with large chromosomes, female offspring were produced whereas when eggs were fertilized with small chromosomes then male offspring were produced.

Death:
Sadly for Nettie Stevens’ the position as a research professor she had long sought was offered just before breast cancer took her life in 1912, but she was unable to accept it due to her ill health.

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