Mary-Lou Pardue, professor emerita in the Department of Biology, died on June 1, 2024. She was 90.<\/p>\n
Early in her career, Pardue developed a technique called in situ <\/em>hybridization with her PhD advisor Joseph Gall<\/a>, which allows researchers to localize genes on chromosomes. This led to many discoveries, including critical advancements in developmental biology, our understanding of embryonic development, and the structure of chromosomes. She also studied the remarkably complex way organisms respond to stress, such as heat shock, and discovered how telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, in fruit flies differ from those of other eukaryotic organisms during cell division.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason she was a professor at MIT and why she was doing research was first and foremost because she wanted to answer questions and make discoveries,\u201d says longtime colleague and Professor Emerita Terry Orr-Weaver<\/a>. \u201cShe had her feet cemented in a love of biology.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1983, Pardue was the first woman in the School of Science at MIT to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. She served as Chairman for the Section of Genetics from 1991 to 1994 and as a Council Member from 1995 to 1998. Among other honors, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she served as a Council Member, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.\u00a0 She also served on numerous editorial boards and review panels, and as the vice president, president, and chair of the Genetics Society of America and president of the American Society for Cell Biology.<\/p>\n Her graduate students and postdoctoral scholars included Alan Spradling, Matthew Scott, Tom Cech, Paul Lasko, and Joan Ruderman.<\/p>\n Pardue was born on Sept. 15, 1933, in Lexington, Kentucky. She received a BS in Biology from the College of William and Mary in 1955, and she was awarded an MS in Radiation Biology from the University of Tennessee in 1959. In 1970, she was awarded a PhD in Biology for her work with Gall at Yale University.<\/p>\n As one of the senior women faculty who co-signed a letter to the Dean of Science at MIT about the bias against women scientists at the institute, Pardue\u2019s career was inextricably linked to the slowly rising number of women with advanced degrees in science. During her early years as a graduate student at Yale, there NetBet sportwere a few women with PhDs \u2014 but none held faculty positions. Indeed, Pardue assumed she would spend her career as a senior scientist working in someone else\u2019s lab, rather than running her own.<\/p>\n Pardue was an avid hiker and loved to travel and spend time outdoors. She scaled peaks from the White Mountains to the Himalayas and pursued postdoctoral work in Europe at the University of Edinburgh. She was delighted to receive invitations to give faculty search seminars for the opportunity to travel to institutions across the U.S.\u2014including an invitation to visit MIT.<\/p>\n MIT had initially rejected her job application, although the department quickly realized it had erred in missing the opportunity to recruit Pardue. In the end, she spent more than 30 years as a professor in Cambridge.<\/p>\n When Pardue joined, the department had two women faculty members, Lisa Steiner<\/a> and Annamaria Torriani-Gorini<\/a> \u2014 more women than at any other academic institution Pardue had interviewed. Pardue became an associate professor of Biology in 1972, a professor in 1980, and the Boris Magasanik Professor of Biology<\/a> in 1995.<\/p>\n Pardue was known for her rigorous approach to science as well as her bright smile and support of others.<\/p>\n When Graham Walker<\/a>, American Cancer Society and HHMI Professor, joined the department in 1976, he recalled an event for meeting graduate students at which he was repeatedly mistaken for a graduate student himself. Pardue parked herself by his side to bear the task of introducing the newest faculty member.<\/p>\n \u201cMary-Lou had an art for taking care of people,\u201d Walker says. \u201cShe was a wonderful colleague and a close friend.\u201d<\/p>\n Troy Littleton<\/a>, Professor of Biology, Menicon Professor of Neuroscience, and Investigator at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory \u2014 then a young faculty member \u2014 had his first experience teaching with Pardue for an undergraduate project lab course.<\/p>\n \u201cObserving how Mary-Lou was able to get the students excited about basic research was instrumental in shaping my teaching skills,\u201d Littleton says. \u201cHer passion for discovery was infectious, and the students loved working on basic research questions under her guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n She was also a mentor for fellow women joining the department, including E.C. Whitehead Professor of Biology and HHMI investigator Tania A. Baker<\/a>, who joined the department in 1992, and Orr-Weaver, the first female faculty member to join the Whitehead Institute<\/a> in 1987.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was seriously respected as a woman scientist\u2014as a scientist,\u201d recalls Nancy Hopkins<\/a>, Amgen Professor of Biology Emerita. \u201cFor women of our generation, there were no role models ahead of us, and so to see that somebody could do it, and have that kind of respect, was really inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n Hopkins first encountered Pardue\u2019s work on in situ<\/em> hybridization as a graduate student. Although it wasn\u2019t Hopkins\u2019 field, she remembers being struck NetBet sportby the implications \u2014 a leap in science that today could be compared to the discoveries that are possible because of the applications of gene-editing CRISPR technology.<\/p>\n \u201cThe questions were very big, but the technology was small,\u201d Hopkins says. \u201cThat you could actually do these kinds of things was kind of a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n Pardue was the person who called to give Hopkins the news that she had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. They hadn\u2019t worked together, yet, but Hopkins felt like Pardue had been looking out for her, and was so excited on her behalf.<\/p>\n Later, though, Hopkins was initially hesitant to reach out to Pardue to discuss the discrimination Hopkins had experienced as a faculty member at MIT \u2014 Pardue seemed so successful that surely her gender had not held her back. Hopkins found that women, in general, didn\u2019t discuss the ways they had been undervalued; it was humiliating to admit to being treated unfairly.<\/p>\n Hopkins drafted a letter about the systemic and invisible discrimination she had experienced \u2014 but Hopkins, ever the scientist, needed a reviewer.<\/p>\n At a table in the corner of Rebecca\u2019s Caf\u00e9, a now-defunct eatery, Pardue read the letter \u2014 and declared she\u2019d like to sign it and take it to the Dean of the School of Science.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew the world had changed in that instant,\u201d Hopkins says. \u201cShe\u2019s the person who made the difference. She changed my life, and changed, in the end, MIT.\u201d<\/p>\n It was only when some of the tenured women faculty of the School of Science all came together that they discovered their experiences were similar. Hopkins, Pardue, Orr-Weaver, Steiner, Susan Carey<\/a>, Sylvia Ceyer<\/a>, Sallie \u201cPenny\u201d Chisholm<\/a>, Suzanne Corkin<\/a>, Mildred Dresselhaus<\/a>, Ann Graybiel<\/a>, Ruth Lehmann<\/a>, Marcia McNutt<\/a>, Molly Potter<\/a>, Paula Malanotte-Rizzoli<\/a>, Leigh Royden<\/a>, and Joanne Stubbe<\/a> ultimately signed a letter to Robert Birgeneau<\/a>, then the Dean of Science.<\/p>\n Their efforts led to a Committee on the Status of Women Faculty in 1995, the report for which was made public in 1999<\/a>. The report captured pervasive bias against women across the School of Science. In response, MIT ultimately worked to improve the working conditions of women scientists across the institute. These efforts reverberated at academic institutions across the country.<\/p>\n Walker notes that creating real change requires a monumental effort of political and societal pressure \u2014 but it also requires outstanding individuals whose work surpasses the barriers holding them back.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Mary-Lou came to MIT, there weren\u2019t many cracks in the glass ceiling,\u201d he says. \u201cI think she, in many ways, was a leader in helping to change the status of women in science by just being who she was.\u201d<\/p>\n Kerry Kelley, now a research laboratory operations manager in the Yilmaz Lab<\/a> at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research<\/a>, joined Pardue as a technical lab assistant in 2008, netbet online sports bettingKelley\u2019s first job at MIT. Pardue, throughout her career, was committed to hands-on work, preparing her own slides whenever possible.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest things I learned from her was mistakes aren\u2019t always mistakes. If you do an experiment, and it doesn\u2019t turn out the way you had hoped, there\u2019s something there that you can learn from,\u201d Kelley says. She recalls a frequent refrain with a smile: \u201c\u2018It\u2019s research. What do you do? Re-search.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Their birthdays were on consecutive days in September; Pardue would mark the occasion for both at Legal Seafoods in Kendall Square with Bluefish, white wine, and lab members and collaborators including Kelley, Karen Traverse, and the late Paul Gregory DeBaryshe.<\/p>\n In the years before her death, Pardue resided at Youville House Assisted Living<\/a> in Cambridge, where Kelley would often visit.<\/p>\nIn the minority<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The person who made a difference<\/strong><\/h3>\n
MIT and the status of women<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Later years<\/strong><\/h3>\n