Roger Arliner Young

Roger Arliner Young (August 20, 1899 – November 9, 1964) was an American scientist of zoology, biology, and marine biology. She was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree in zoology.

Early years Born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899, Young soon moved with her family to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania where she graduated from Burgettstown High School. Though her grades were poor at the beginning of her college career, some of her teachers saw promise in her. One such teacher was Ernest Everett Just, a prominent black biologist and head of the Zoology department at Howard University. Young graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1923. Just tried unsuccessfully to help her to gain funding for graduate school, Research was done during the summers. Young assisted Just in his research from 1927 through 1930, but although her assistance was noted in his grant applications, her name does not appear as a coauthor in the resulting publications. While conducting research at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, she presented research papers detailing her work there on three occasions, receiving additional funding in the form of three separate grants under the mentorship of Just.

In the late 1920s, Young served as the acting chair for the zoology department at Howard University while Just had travelled to Europe seeking grant money. Whether related to academic performance or a romantic conflict, Just had created a paper trail of complaints surrounding Young leading up to 1936 painting her performance as disruptive to the smooth operation of research and teaching at Howard University. He restricted Young's access to important research equipment, and finally in 1936, used his trail of evidence to fire Young. and became an organiser of black workers in the Tobacco Workers International Union (TWIU). The others honored were Ruth Ella Moore ("who in 1933 became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in natural science from the Ohio State University"), Euphemia Lofton Haynes ("who in 1943 became the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Catholic University of America"), Shirley Ann Jackson ("who in 1973 became the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology"), and Mae Jemison ("a physician and the first African American woman in space").

A group of environmental and conservation groups established the Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Marine Conservation Diversity Fellowship in Young's honor, to support young African Americans who want to become involved in marine environmental conservation work.

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