Marie Maynard Daly

Marie Daly overcame dual hurdles of racial and gender bias to pursue chemistry. In 1947 she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry. After a long career as a biochemistry professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Daly established a scholarship fund for African American science students at Queens College, her alma mater, in honor of her father.

About Her Life

Marie Maynard Daly (1921–2003) was born in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York. She was an avid reader and was fascinated by Paul De Kruif’s popular book The Microbe Hunters. She was further inspired by her father’s love of science. Unfortunately, he had been forced by economic circumstances to drop out of Cornell University, where he had been pursuing a bachelor’s degree in chemistry.

Daly was educated at Hunter College High School, an all-female institution where her ambition to become a chemist was supported and encouraged. She attended Queens College in Flushing, New York, as a commuting student. In 1942 she graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, magna cum laude. The college then offered her a fellowship to attend graduate school in chemistry at New York University while working part-time as a laboratory assistant at Queens College. In just one year she completed her master's degree.

Daly enrolled in the doctoral program at Columbia University after working for a year tutoring chemistry students at Queens College. She also obtained funding from the university to help in her full-time study of chemistry. Under the direction of Mary L. Caldwell, who was known for her work on the important digestive enzyme amylase, Daly researched how compounds produced in the body affect and participate in digestion. The title of her dissertation was “A Study of the Products Formed by the Action of Pancreatic Amylase on Corn Starch.” Daly was awarded her doctoral degree in 1947, only three years after enrolling in the program, and was the first African American woman to obtain a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States.

After completing her doctoral degree, Daly taught for two years at Howard University in Washington, D.C. On receiving a grant from the American Cancer Society to support her postdoctoral research, she joined Alfred E. Mirsky, pioneer in molecular biology, at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, where for seven years she worked on the composition and metabolism of components of the cell nucleus, among other studies. Then Daly took a new position teaching biochemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. In 1960 she became a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she remained until her retirement in 1986. In 1961 Daly married Vincent Clark.

Her early research as a professor included the effects of cholesterol on the mechanics of the heart, the effects of sugars and other nutrients on the health of arteries, and the breakdown of the circulatory system as a result of advanced age or hypertension. Later she studied how proteins are produced and organized in the cell. Clearly Daly's research was geared toward practical applications for health and nutrition.