A Zoology Genius

Roger Arliner Young, the first Black woman zoologist

Roger Arliner Young’s life began and ended in poverty, but in between she was a groundbreaking research scientist and professor. I wish I could say she enjoyed a long, happy career — and had she been a white man she surely would have — but her life and work were marred by racism and sexism.

Roger was born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899, and her family soon moved to Pennsylvania. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a housekeeper who had become disabled. Most of their money went…