Mathilde Carmen Hertz

Mathilde Carmen Hertz (14 January 1891 – 20 November 1975) was a biologist, and was one of the first influential women scientists in the field of biology and a pioneer in the field of comparative psychology. Working in Germany, her career started to unravel in 1933 due to her Jewish ancestry. She was the younger daughter of the famous physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.

Biography Mathilde Hertz was born on 14 January 1891 in Bonn, Germany. Her father, Heinrich Hertz, died in 1894 when Mathilde Hertz was still very young. Hertz was born into a wealthy and well-educated family. After finishing secondary schooling, she received training in fine arts and worked as a sculptor. Once finished with her dissertation, she focused her attention on a different area. Influenced by renowned animal psychologist Wolfgang Koehler, Wolfgang Koehler was one of her post-doctoral committee members. After turning down an offer from Columbia University After only two years at the University of Cambridge, she stopped publishing and disappeared from the public spotlight. Unwilling to accept charity based on her family ties, she died in poverty in 1975. She was specifically interested in the visual perception of these birds. Her findings are valued for many reasons. Among others, she published important findings explaining problem-solving in animals. In the years following, she focused primarily on the visual perception of honeybees Gustav Ludwig Hertz's son Carl Hellmuth Hertz, in turn, developed medical ultrasonography at Lund University in Sweden.