Biography of Dr. Louise Hanson Marshall

A Biography of Dr. Louise Hanson Marshall

 

Overview
Dr. Louise Hanson Marshall was the first recipient of the Women in Neuroscience (WIN, predecessor to the Committee on Women in Neuroscience) Special Recognition Award of a lifetime of distinguished service and outstanding contributions to the field of Neuroscience. She led, sequentially, three complete scientific careers on top of a rich personal and family life:

  • First, as a physiologist;
  • Second, as a facilitator, organizer, and editor of neuroscience and neuroscientists;
  • And third, as an historian of neuroscience.

It is important to note that Dr. Marshall was never actively engaged in bench research as a neuroscientist. However, because of her contributions helped define the field, launch the Society for Neuroscience, and document the field's history, she was truly a woman in neuroscience.

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Early Career
The dust jacket description for Marshall and Magoun's Discoveries in the Human Brain: Neuroscience Prehistory, Structure, and Function (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, 1998) begins with the author's characteristic pithiness and wry humor: "Louise Hanson Marshall found the biological sciences congenial, and earned a PhD degree in physiology at the University of Chicago." This followed her graduation from Francis Parker High School in San Diego 75 years ago, and Vassar College thereafter.\

Her first career - as a research physiologist who taught courses in nutrition, metabolism, and excretion - was interrupted when she decided to start a family.

She resumed work at NIH's wartime Aviation Medicine Unit, and followed this with 20 years of renal physiology research at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disorders. During that time, she cloaked her postdoctoral years of professional inactivity with the phrase "in temporary retirement." Her curriculum vitae entry for that era simply yet proudly stated, "Housewife, two children."

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SfN's Founding
In 1965, Dr. Marshall joined the National Research Council (NRC) at the National Academy of Sciences. As the NRC staff officer responsible for the Committee on Brain Sciences, Dr. Marshall was instrumental in helping to shepherd the founding of the Society for Neurosciece and served as the first secretary-treasurer and newsletter editor.

Under her directorship, the International Brain Research Organization Survey of Research Facilities and Manpower in Brain Sciences in the United States (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1968) sought to define the nascent field of "neuroscience" and to determine who was doing what kind of brain and behavior research, and where.

Retirement in 1975 from this second career led Dr. Marshall to UCLA's Brain Research Institute, as managing editor of the journal Experimental Neurology.

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Concern with Neuroscience Workforce Issues
Dr. Marshall's "Maturation and current status of neuroscience: data from the 1976 Inventory of U.S. Neuroscientists" (Experimental Neurology, 1979) included hard data and far-reaching conclusions which now provide historical perspective to WIN's mission and activities.

Although WIN's 1996-1997 National Survey Concerning Women's Careers in the Neurosciences failed to acknowledge the baseline study, WIN member Laurel L. Haak corrected that oversight and took advantage of Dr. Marshall's counsel and decades-long experience with neuroscience workforce issues in a paper. The paper, entitled "Women in Neuroscience (WIN): Our First Twenty Years," was published in the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences in March 2002.

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Work Exploring the History of Neuroscience
Following her third retirement in 1979, but remaining at UCLA, Dr. Marshall turned her full-time energy and unbridled enthusiasm to documenting the history of her adopted field.

She and Brain Research Institute (BRI) founder H.W. Magoun (with Frances A. Brewer, Elizabeth M.R. Lomax, and Ynez V. O'Neill) co-authored a tour de force at the 35th meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in 1983: 41 posters organized into series on: "Leading American Publications in the History of Neuroscience," "Anatomy: Evolution, Lateralization, Localization," "Substrates of Consciousness," "An Early School of Neurology in Los Angeles," and a "Brief History of Stereotaxis."

Her historical posters presented at SfN annual meetings since 1983 were always well received, despite being nestled among unrelated reports on experimental research. Today's conference-long display of history-themed posters is due in no small part to Dr. Marshall's foresight and persistent example, as well as her unflagging lobbying of the SfN Council for a separate "History" theme session - at first as a voice in the wilderness trying to promote the production and recognition of high caliber historical research - and, finally, as one of a growing body of presenters whom the Council acknowledged by creating the "History of Neuroscience" poster theme.

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Neuroscience History Archives
Dr. Marshall and Dr. Magoun established the Neuroscience History Resource Program (NHRP) at UCLA in 1980. The NHRP evolved into the Neuroscience History Archives (NHA) following Dr. Magoun's death. With Dr. Marshall's inspired and indefatigable direction, the NHA promoted the advancement and diffusion of knowledge about the history of neuroscience.

Through the identification, collection, and preservation of primary source material of twentieth century American neuroscience, the NHA seeks to create a documentary heritage for future generations that will represent the ideas, actions, and accomplishments of the discipline's practitioners. Under Dr. Marshall's guidance, the NHA identified and preserved the papers of living scientists and records of their professional organizations; assisted neuroscientists in finding appropriate repositories for their papers; promoted access to this documentary evidence through the preparation of finding aids and other guides; facilitated scholarly use of the collections; and carried out research and education in the history of neuroscience.

Dr. Marshall committed the Neuroscience History Archives to working with C-WIN to capture its own history, and to make sure that the professional and personal papers documenting the lifetime achievements of individual women in neuroscience are preserved, processed, and made accessible for future historical and sociocultural research.

The C-WIN Special Recognition Award was given to Louise Marshall for her service and commitment to a field that she vigorously embraced as a chronicler of neuroscience and as a stellar example for women in neuroscience.

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Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award
Currently, there is an SfN travel award named in Dr. Marshall's honor. The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award is for an individual working outside the field of neuroscience who has significantly promoted the professional advancement of women in neuroscience. 

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