Posts tagged first female Ph.D.

March 23, 2009

 

Effa Funk Muhse

Talk of zoology at Indiana University often turns to a scholar whose research shifted from gall wasps to human sexuality, shaking the world in the process. Decades before Alfred Kinsey began his groundbreaking work, however, the IU Department of Zoology became noteworthy for another reason—also related to sex and gender.

Having earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in zoology, Effa Funk Muhse made history as IU’s first female Ph.D. when that same department awarded her the degree in 1908.