In 1957, Dr. Margaret Pittman became the first woman named chief of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) laboratory, the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, a post she held until her retirement in 1971.
Margaret Pittman grew up in Prairie Grove, Arkansas and credited her interest in science to her father who was a physician. She graduated magna cum laude in 1923 from Hendrix College (Arkansas), majoring in mathematics and biology.
Dr. Pittman taught at Galloway College (Atlanta) and then attended the University of Chicago for a masters master's and Ph.D. in bacteriology.
In 1928, Dr. Pittman began working at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research (New York) with Dr. Rufus Cole on whether Hemophilus influenza caused influenza (it does not). Developing a vaccine against meningitis caused by a strain of H. influenza earned her an international scientific reputation before the age of 30.
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Dr. Pittman, at left, and Dr. Sadie L. Carlin reading an agglutination reaction, part of the test for potency of anti-meningitis serum (1937)
