Happy Pride month from the PRISM board!
To celebrate we are highlighting the work of an LGBTQ+ scientist from the history of Rockefeller University. Dr. Louise Pearce (1885-1959) was the first woman appointed to a research position at the university. She received degrees from Stanford University and Johns Hopkins Medical school, where she graduated third in her class. In 1913 she was appointed to a research position at Rockefeller University, then known as the Rockefeller Institute. Her research focused on using arsenic containing compounds to treat sleeping sickness. In 1920 she traveled to the Congo to run clinical trials of the compound tryparsamide, which subsequently became the standard of care. For this work she received in 1921 the Order of the Crown of Belgium and in 1953 the Royal Order of the Lion.
Pearce was a member of Heterodoxy, a feminist lunch society that contained many bisexual and lesbian members. She lived with the physician Sara Josephine Baker and Ida A. R. Wylie, an author, who were also members of Heterodoxy. Pierce and Wylie are buried together at the farm in New Jersey on which they lived during retirement.
