Mount Desert, Maine
Dr.Elizabeth S. Russell is an outstanding scientist, one of the relativelyfew women elected to the National Academy of Science, author ofover 120 papers, with specialties in the patterns of aging andthe genetics and physiology of blood abnormalities. Dr. Russellwas born on May 1, 1913 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having graduatedwith a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1937, she cameto Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor as an independent investigatorand retired in 1978 as Senior Staff Scientist. Dr. Russell's primaryresearch interest has been in physiological genetics; hereditarydisease; mouse hematology and aging.
Dr. Russell has traveled extensively including China and Africafor the World Health Organization. She has also been active inher community having served on numerous committees of town government.She has received international fellowships; she has also workedon Fundraising activities to benefit local scholarships for womenand has spent much time counseling high school girls headed forcollege. Dr. Russell was a Trustee of the University of Mainefrom 1975 to 1983 and is currently a Trustee of the College ofthe Atlantic.
Dr. Russell raised four children, essentially as a single parentduring the later years of their childhood. At the same time, herresearch of aging led to heavy involvement with the Maine EasternArea Agency on Aging, dealing with social issues. In her "retirement"she has twice taught at Cuttington College, a women's collegein Liberia, to which she took her wide knowledge of women's organizationsin Maine, and from which she brought back and shared many newand exciting ideas.
As a featured panelist at each of three symposia for studentsat the University of Maine, Dr. Russell also managed to meet one-on-onewith many of the students and to give each one a new sense ofworth, ability, and higher potential. This is her specialty, whichshe has pursued throughout Maine at every opportunity. Duringher fifty years in Bar Harbor, she has sponsored an enormous numberof students in her laboratory, from teenagers to post-doctoralinvestigators. An unusually high proportion have been women, manyMaine natives, and many have stayed in Maine to carry on scientificresearch and the education and encouragement of young women.
During her term as trustee of the University of Maine, shewas a strong advocate of placing women in upper-level positionsin faculty and administration, at a time when this placement wasmuch rarer than now. Dr. Russell's efforts toward education andprofessional employment of women, together with her outstandingpersonal example as mother, teacher, scientist, and humanitarian,have made an enduring impact on the lives of many women in thisState.
1989 Photograph
Inducted March, 1991
