16 Facts About Nettie Stevens

Nettie Maria Stevens was born on July 7,1861, in Cavendish, Vermont, to Julia and Ephraim Stevens.

Nettie Stevens's father worked as a carpenter and earned enough money to provide Nettie and her sister, Emma, with a strong education through high school.

Nettie Stevens continued her education at Westfield Normal School She completed the four-year course in two years and graduated with the highest scores in her class.

Nettie Stevens became increasingly focused on histology after completing one year of graduate work in physiology under Oliver Peebles Jenkins and his former student, and assistant professor, Frank Mace MacFarland.

Nettie Stevens focused her doctoral studies on topics such as regeneration in primitive multicellular organisms, the structure of single celled organisms, the development of sperm and eggs, germ cells of insects, and cell division in sea urchins and worms.

Nettie Stevens continued there as reader in experimental morphology for another year and worked at Bryn Mawr as an associate in experimental morphology from 1905 until her death.

Nettie Stevens was offered the position she had long sought, as research professor at Bryn Mawr College, just before cancer took her life.

Nettie Stevens was unable to accept the offer due to her ill health.

In 1908, Nettie Stevens received the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now the American Association of University Women.

Nettie Stevens was one of the first American women to be recognized for her contribution to science.

Nettie Stevens identified the small chromosome currently known as the Y chromosome in the mealworm Tenebrio.

Nettie Stevens performed cytological examination only on the testes, that is he did not examine the female germ cells but only the male germ cells in his studies.

Nettie Stevens's paper stated that eggs were too fatty for his staining procedures.

Nettie Stevens worked with these as subjects of her research for some years before Morgan adopted them as his model organism.

Nettie Stevens was buried in the Westford, Massachusetts cemetery alongside the graves of her father, Ephraim, and her sister, Emma.

In 1994, Nettie Stevens was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.