13 Facts About Lula Lubchenco

Lula Lubchenco's family moved from Russian Turkestan to South Carolina when she was a small child, and Lubchenco's higher education and career were spent almost entirely in Colorado.

Lula Lubchenco was among the early physicians to suspect a link between oxygen administration and the eye condition that became known as retinopathy of prematurity.

Lula Lubchenco remained involved with committees at the university until her death.

Lula Lubchenco's mother, Portia McKnight Lula Lubchenco, was an American physician and the first female to graduate from North Carolina Medical College.

Portia Lula Lubchenco met her husband Alexis, a Russian agronomist, when he came to the United States to learn to grow cotton.

Alexis Lula Lubchenco was a professor at the University of Moscow and was friends with politician Alexander Kerensky.

Lula Lubchenco was the second of five children, and the family lived in Turkestan until Lubchenco was about two years old.

In 1930, when the boll weevil damaged the family's crops, they moved to Northeast Colorado, where Lula Lubchenco graduated from high school.

Lula Lubchenco attended Denver University and completed a medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1939.

Lula Lubchenco completed a rotating internship at Colorado General Hospital and began her pediatric training at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Lula Lubchenco was a private-practice pediatrician and a faculty member at the University of Colorado School of Medicine for a short time before she was asked to head Colorado General Hospital's Premature Infant Center on what was supposed to be an interim basis.

Evidence pointed to excessive oxygen administration as an important cause of RLF, and Lula Lubchenco was able to greatly reduce the incidence of RLF in her center by managing the oxygen carefully, though it took several years before physicians at other hospitals were convinced of this connection.

Lula Lubchenco retired from clinical practice in 1977, but she remained a member of university committees until her death.