Janet Rowley

Early life and education Janet Davison was born in New York City in 1925, the only child of Hurford and Ethel Ballantyne Davison. Her father held a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School, and her mother a master's degree in education from Columbia University. Her parents were educators at the college and high school levels, respectively, and her mother later gave up teaching to become a school librarian.

Davison attended an academically challenging junior high school in New Jersey and became especially interested in science. In 1940, aged 15, she was granted a scholarship to study in an advanced placement program at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where she finished high school and the first two years of college, followed by completion of her degree at the University of Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1944, a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946, and Doctor of Medicine degree in 1948, aged 23. During that time only 3 out of 65 students were to be women in each class accepted. In 1951, both Janet and Donald Rowley completed internships at the United States Public Health Service's Marine Hospital in Chicago. Rowley continued her work throughout Chicago and worked in a clinic for children with Down Syndrome. When Dr. Rowley published her findings in the 1970s, she argued that specific translocations caused specific diseases, going against the established view of the cause of cancer which gave little significance to chromosomal abnormalities. In 1999, Dr. Rowley received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science. In 2003, she received the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society. In 2007, she was awarded the Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics by the Association for Molecular Pathology. In 2009, Dr. Rowley was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, by then-President Barack Obama, For Rowley's scientific contributions she has received honorary doctor of science degrees from multiple institutions some of which include Yale University and Harvard University.

Death

On December 17, 2013, Rowley died at home at the age of 88 from complications of ovarian cancer.