Sophie Lutterlough

Sophie Lutterlough (19102009) was an American entomologist. Lutterlough began working at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) as an elevator operator in the 1940s at a time when discriminatory hiring practices prevented African-Americans from working in a curatorial or scientific capacity at the Museum. In the late 1950s, after having gained extensive knowledge of the museum's exhibitions, she asked for and achieved a role in entomological work, eventually restoring hundreds of thousands of insects, classifying thousands. - and held that position for 14 years, during which she studied the museum's exhibits on her lunch break and became "a one-women [sic] information bureau" to museum visitors. Lutterlough started on that path in 1957, when she asked an insect curator, J.F. Gates Clark, if she could work in his department, and gained a position as insect preparator.

Jeannine Smith Clark worked at the NMNH as a volunteer tour guide from the late 1960s, and Margaret Collins, an African-American zoology professor at Howard University, was a research associate at the NMNH from the late 1970s. There were no other African-Americans employed as scientists there in 1985. African-Americans were still greatly under-represented among entomologists in 2008, when only eight faculty members of 1,348 on U.S. websites could be identified as African-American.

Lutterlough worked on identifying the NMNH's insect collection, becoming a research assistant within two years.

Lutterlough took college courses in science and writing, and studied German to support her development as an entomologist. Henry Lutterlough was a member of the Earl Reece Stadtman biochemistry laboratory at the National Institutes of Health. They traveled extensively, including trips to Scandinavia, Hawaii and elsewhere in the United States. Barbara married Willis Hines in 1954 and they had two children, Barbara Elaine Hines and Bryan Edward Hines. Lutterlough remained close to her family and traveled frequently to visit them in New Jersey. Sophie and her daughter Barbara also took a Smithsonian-sponsored trip to China. Lutterlough was widowed, and in 1999, she moved to live with her daughter in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. Pygmephorus lutterloughae is a large mite, described from a sample in the NMNH collection (No. 3782), collected in Oregon in 1970.

In 1983 when she retired from the Smithsonian, Lutterlough was honored with an Exemplary Service award.