Mary Gaulden Jagger

Mary Esther Gaulden Jagger (known professionally as Mary Esther Gaulden) (1921- Sept. 1, 2007) was an American radiation geneticist, professor of radiology and political activist who authored some 60 scientific publications.

Early life

Gauden earned a bachelor's of science degree from Winthrop College, where she double-majored in music and biology, and later earned her doctorate in biology at the University of Virginia.

Oak Ridge

In 1949, she began working as a senior radiation biologist in the Biology Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee under Alexander Hollaender. There, in 1956, she met biophysicist John Jagger, whom she married 19 October 1956. While working in Oak Ridge, Gaulden Jagger became locally famous as the person who "threw the rascals out" of the Anderson County Election Commission, and was also active in the county’s desegregation movement, participating in drugstore and restaurant sit-ins alongside her husband. Gaulden was a founding member of the Radiation Research Society and the Environmental Mutagen Society and was president of the Association of Southeastern Biologists in 1959.^[1]

UT Southwestern Medical Center

In the mid-1960s, the couple and their two young children relocated to Dallas, Texas. Gaulden took a position as a professor of radiology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, where she retired in 1992. In 1966 she was one of the 30 women who founded the National Organization for Women.

Gaulden served on the Committee on Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council from 1989–1999, studying (among other things) the environment on the International Space Station.^[2]

References

1. ^ Oak Ridge National Laboratory Reporter (U.S. Department of Energy) Number 92, September 2007; p. 7.
2. ^ [Beauchamp, Jenni. "Mary Esther Gaulden Jagger: Life a 'great adventure' for biologist, author." Dallas Morning News, September 17, 2007]

Persondata
Name	Gaulden, Mary Esther
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Date of birth	1921
Place of birth
Date of death	2007
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