1. Rosa Mabel Lee was a British statistician, the first woman scientist to be employed by the Marine Biological Association and the first woman to work as a government fishery scientist in the United Kingdom.
14 Facts About Rosa Lee
1. 2.
Rosa Lee's father, George Henry Payne Lee was a civil servant, born in Exeter, Devon.
3.
Rosa Lee's mother was Maria Agnes, born in St Pancras, London.
4.
Rosa Lee had two older brothers and two older sisters.
5.
Rosa Lee graduated from Bangor University in 1904 with a BA in mathematics, its first woman graduate in mathematics.
6.
Rosa Lee was employed by the Marine Biological Association in their laboratory at Lowestoft, the first woman scientist to be employed by the MBA.
7.
Rosa Lee became the first woman to work as a government fishery scientist when she was employed as an assistant naturalist in 1905.
8.
In 1910, all of the staff at Lowestoft were transferred to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and during the original transfer, Rosa Lee was not offered a job.
9.
Rosa Lee continued her research and stayed on with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in London until 1919.
10.
Rosa Lee worked at the office in Delahay Street, Westminster.
11.
Rosa Lee married Thomas Lewis Williams in 1917, but had to leave the Civil Service in 1919 as the marriage bar rules at the time did not allow married women to continue in employment.
12.
Rosa Lee herself died in Greenwich in 1976, aged 92.
13.
Rosa Lee published a number of important scientific papers in her working life, including an article that appeared in Nature in 1920.
14.
Rosa Lee's work is still relevant today and her paper is frequently cited, however her actual influence is greater than indicated by the number of citations, because some scientific authors simply refer to 'Rosa Lee's phenomenon' rather than correctly citing her publication.