{{Short description|American botanist (1911–1990)}} {{about||the co-founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority|Marie Woolfolk Taylor|the New Zealand mycologist and botanist|Marie Taylor (mycologist)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Marie Clark Taylor | image = Marie_Clark_Taylor_(1911-1990).jpg | image_size = | alt = Photo of Marie Clark Taylor | birth_date = {{Birth date|1911|02|28}} | birth_place = Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania | death_date = {{death date and age|1990|12|28|1911|02|28}} | death_place = Washington, D.C. | resting_place = | residence = | citizenship = | fields = Botany | workplaces = Howard University | alma_mater = Howard University<br />Fordham University | thesis_title = The influence of definite photoperiods upon the growth and development of initiated floral primordia | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 1941 | spouse = Richard Taylor | child = one son | footnotes = }}
'''Marie Clark Taylor''' (February 16, 1911 – December 28, 1990) was an American botanist, the first woman to earn a science doctorate at Fordham University, and the Head of the Botany Department at Howard University from 1947 to her retirement in 1976. Her research interest was plant photomorphogenesis.<ref name="quest">{{cite journal|title=50 Years of Doctoral Education: 1958-2008|journal=Quest|date=Spring 2008|issue=6|page=8|url=https://gs.howard.edu/quest/spring2008/Text.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011004104/https://gs.howard.edu/quest/spring2008/Text.pdf|accessdate=October 8, 2016|archive-date=October 11, 2016}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Taylor was born in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, on February 16, 1911.<ref name="quest"/><ref name="Dupree 2021">{{cite web |last=Dupree |first=Gus |title=Remembering the Legacy of Marie Clark Taylor, Ph.D., a Trailblazing Female Botanist of Color |website=The Observer |date=December 8, 2021 |url=https://fordhamobserver.com/66452/recent/sports-and-health/remembering-the-legacy-of-marie-clark-taylor-ph-d-a-trailblazing-female-botanist-of-color/ |access-date=May 11, 2025}}</ref> After graduating from Dunbar High School in Washington D.C. in 1929, she earned her B.S. (1933) and M.S. (1935, Botany) at Howard University, and in 1941, her Ph.D. at Fordham University, being the first woman of any race to earn a science doctorate at Fordham.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = Black Women Scientists in the United States|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=75bnncOVqEIC|pages=260–262|chapter=Marie Clark Taylor|publisher = Indiana University Press|date = 1999|isbn = 0253336031|first = Wini|last = Warren}}</ref> For her dissertation, she studied ''The influence of definite photoperiods upon the growth and development of initiated floral primordia''.<ref name="Clark - dissertation">{{cite book|last1=Clark|first1=Marie B|title=The influence of definite photoperiods upon the growth and development of initiated floral primordia|date=1941|publisher=Fordham University|location=New York|url=http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=87bbc396-6a3f-4fde-88fa-45f3b6b0b751%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=96607753&db=ddu|accessdate=February 20, 2018}}{{Dead link|date=March 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
== Career == She taught at Cardozo High School in the late 1930s and early 1940s,<ref name="Dupree 2021"/><ref name="obit">{{Cite news| pages = B06| title = Obituaries. Marie C. Taylor| newspaper = The Washington Post| date = January 15, 1991}}</ref> and later started summer science institutes for high school science teachers, introducing new methods for teaching science, such as using light-microscopes to study cells. After serving in the Army Red Cross in New Guinea during World War II, she joined the Botany Department at Howard University in 1945.<ref name=":0" /> She succeeded Charles Stewart Parker as Chair of the Botany Department in 1947 at Howard University, a position she held until her retirement in 1976.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite book|title=Beyond Stock Stories and Folktales: African Americans' Paths to Stem Fields|year=2011|publisher=Emerald Group Publishing|location=Bingley, UK|isbn=978-1-78052-168-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0IOzOkzqiMC&q=%22Marie%20Clark%20Taylor%22&pg=PA158|edition=1st|editor=Henry T. Frierson, William F. Tate|page=158}}</ref> During her tenure, the department expanded, and Taylor was involved in the design and construction of a new biology building on the Howard University campus.<ref name="quest"/> On January 1, 1948, she married Richard Taylor, whom she had met while they were both serving in New Guinea. They had one child, a son, born in 1950.<ref name=":0" />
Taylor also taught a summer science series for the National Science Foundation designed for biology teachers to make use of botanical materials for their courses to illustrate cell life. These summer classes also developed her teaching methods, where she also emphasized microscopes to study living cells. During the mid-1960s, she was requested by President Lyndon B. Johnson to expand her work overseas, bringing her teaching style to an international level.<ref name=":0" />
After her death, an auditorium in the Ernest E. Just Hall at Howard University was named in her honor.<ref name=":0" />
Taylor died on December 28, 1990, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.<ref name="quest"/><ref name="obit"/>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Marie Clark}} Category:20th-century African-American scientists Category:1911 births Category:1990 deaths Category:African-American women scientists Category:20th-century American educators Category:American women botanists Category:20th-century American botanists Category:Howard University faculty Category:Fordham University alumni Category:Howard University alumni Category:20th-century American women educators Category:20th-century African-American women Category:20th-century African-American educators Category:20th-century American women academics Category:20th-century American women biologists