Joan Murrell Owens

Joan Murrell Owens
Born (1933-06-30)June 30, 1933
Miami, Florida, U.S.
Died May 25, 2011(2011-05-25) (aged 77)
Washington, D.C.
Residence Washington, D.C.
Citizenship United States
Fields Biology
Institutions
Alma mater
Thesis Microstructural changes in the Scleractinian families Micrabaciidae and Fungiidae and their taxonomic and ecologic implications
Doctoral advisor Anthony George (A. G.) Coates[1]
Known for
  • Marine Biology
  • Corals

Joan Murrell Owens (June 30, 1933 – May 25, 2011) was an American educator and marine biologist specializing in corals. She received degrees in geology, fine art, and guidance counseling. She described a new genus, Rhombopsammia, and three new species of button corals, R. niphada, R. squiresi, and Letepsammia franki. She was also one of the first African American women scientists to contribute to the field of marine biology in the United States, and the first African American woman to receive a PhD in geology.

Early life and family

Joan Murrell was born on June 30, 1933, in Miami, Florida, to William and Leola Murrell.[2] Her father was a dentist. Encouraged by her parents, from an early age Joan became interested in the life of the oceans, and she hoped to study marine biology professionally. One of her favorite books was The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau.[1] Joan entered Fisk University in 1950. However, the university did not offer a program in the marine sciences. Instead, she majored in fine art and received her degree in 1954; her minors were mathematics and psychology.[1][2] For graduate study, Murrell entered the University of Michigan with the intention to study commercial art, but she changed her focus. She received a Master of Science degree in guidance counseling with an emphasis on reading therapy in 1956.[2]

Teaching and research

Joan Murrell taught for two years at the University of Michigan's Children's Psychiatric Hospital, and then joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1957, where she specialized in teaching remedial English.[2] In the 1960s, she moved to Newton, Massachusetts. While there, for the Institute for Services to Education she designed programs for teaching English to educationally disadvantaged students. This work served as a model for the Upward Bound program of the United States Department of Education.[1][2]

She returned to Washington; with a renewed interest in marine biology, and the encouragement of her friend and colleague Philip Morrison, she entered George Washington University in 1970.[1] As that institution had no undergraduate program in marine science, she constructed an equivalent with a major in geology and a minor in zoology.[1][2] She received her B.S. in geology in 1973 and her M.S. in 1976. Continuing work toward her doctorate, she returned to Howard as a professor of geology in 1976.[2] Her doctoral research concerned certain species of deep-sea button corals, a group of stony corals that are distinctive in that they do not form colonies. On receipt of her PhD in 1984, she became the first African American woman to receive a doctoral degree in geology.[1]

Now publishing as Joan Murrell Owens, she continued to classify and study button corals, working with specimens from the Smithsonian Institution that were collected by a British expedition in 1880. She described the new genus Rhombopsammia and its two species in 1986, and added a new species to the genus Letepsammia in 1994, naming L. franki for her husband, Frank A. Owens.[2] Both genera are in the family Micrabaciidae.

Joan Owens transferred to the biology department of Howard in 1992, and retired from full-time work in 1995.[2]

Later life and death

Joan Owens died on May 25, 2011. She was survived by her sister, Willette M. Carlton; two daughters, Adrienne Lewis and Angela Owens; and a granddaughter, Chara Johnson.[3]

Selected publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 James H. Kessler (January 1996). Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 272–275. ISBN 978-0-89774-955-8.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 African Americans in Science. ABC-CLIO. pp. 169–172. ISBN 978-1-85109-998-6.
  3. ↑ "Joan M. Owens". Washington Post. June 5, 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
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