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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SL93 (talk | contribs) at 20:23, 21 January 2025 (←Created page with '{{Infobox person | name = Olive Swezy | image = Olive Swezy (b. 1878) (12484615373).jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = 1878 | birth_place = Shohola, Pennsylvania | death_date = 1963 | death_place = | occupation = Zoologist | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = ''The Free-Living Unarmed Dinoflagellata'' }} '''Olive Swezy'''(1878-1963) was an American zoologist. She studied Dinoflag...'). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Olive Swezy
Born	1878 Shohola, Pennsylvania
Died	1963
Occupation	Zoologist
Notable work	The Free-Living Unarmed Dinoflagellata

Olive Swezy(1878-1963) was an American zoologist. She studied dinoflagellata and amoebas. Swezy often worked alongside Charles Kofoid in topics relating to applied zoology. She researched amoebas causing illness and chromosomes. During the 1940s, Swezy wrote papers against Nazism and holding Japanese Americans in internment camps.

Personal life and education

Swezy was born in Shohola, Pennsylvania, in 1878. Swezy attended Berkeley College for both her undergraduate and graduate studies. She received her BS in 1913, followed by an MS in 1914. In 1915, she was awarded a PhD in zoology from Berkeley, with her dissertation titled The Kinetonucleus of Flagellates and the Binuclear Theory of Hartmann. After finishing her education, Swezy continued her research under the guidance of Charles Kofoid, who was the second chair of zoology. She died in 1963.

Career

She was later appointed as an assistant in the Zoology Department at Berkeley before relocating to the Marine Biological Laboratory at La Jolla, where Kofoid worked as the assistant director alongside William Ritter. Swezy played a significant role in many of Kofoid’s diverse research initiatives. Her letters with Ritter indicate that she had difficulty establishing her identity as a scientist instead of being seen as a part-time librarian at Scripps. She consistently expressed her preference not to be referred to as a librarian. Around 1917, she commenced her study on dinoflagellata at Scripps under the guidance of Charles Kofoid, who had been researching the subject since 1901 alongside other students. Swezy was among Kofoid's assistants. Kofoid’s contributions often eclipsed those of Olive Swezy. In 1921, Swezy was acknowledged as a co-author on a substantial 583-page work entitled The Free-Living Unarmed Dinoflagellata, which encapsulated two decades of research. In its report to the president of the University of California, the Zoology Department referred to the book as "the most significant single progressive event" of that year. A biographical memoir from the National Academy of Science regarding Kofoid emphasized the crucial role that the collaborative efforts between Swezy and Kofoid played in his professional journey: "His most significant contributions to protozoan morphology were made during his partnership with Olive Swezy". Throughout the 1920s, Swezy continued to collaborate with Kofoid, publishing papers on a variety of subjects related to his numerous projects in applied zoology. She also authored and coauthored several papers focusing on parasites and intestinal amoebae.

Swezy and Kofoid discovered that amoebas caused dysentery in American troops who were in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. It was the sixth cause of dysentery infection that was discovered. In 1924, Swezy and Kofoid studied amoebae that are able to enter the body of a human by traveling into water or food that has been contaminated. These amoebae can cause ulcers or abscesses in the liver, produce arthritis, and produce rheumatism. In 1929, it was reported that Swezy and Herbert McLean Evans discovered that humans normally have 48 chromosomes. The same study stated that chromosomes are not connected to cancer. It was not until 1955 that Joe Hin Tjio discovered that there are normally 46 human chromosomes.

In 1940, Swezy authored a letter that she sent to the Oakland Tribune about "the dangers of Nazism". She wrote an article in 1942 that protested against Japanese Americans being forced into internment camps. Swezy appeared in the 1944 American Men of Science.

References

1. ^ Humphreys, Sheila M. (November 2022). "Early Women PhDs in Zoology at UC, 1902–1927" (PDF). 150 Years of Women at Berkeley. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
2. "Discover New Cause of Dysenteric Infection". Merced Press. July 9, 1921. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
3. "U.C. Woman Scientist Studies Germs Rheumatism Bugs Held Common Here". Oakland Post Enquirer. March 6, 1924. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
4. "Origin of Sex Discovered At U.C." Oakland Post Enquirer. October 24, 1929. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
5. "1955: 46 Human Chromosomes". National Human Genome Research Institute. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
6. American Men of Science: A Biographical Directory, Volume 7. Bowker. 1944. p. 1748. Retrieved January 21, 2025.

• 1878 births
• 1963 deaths
• American zoologists
• Berkeley College alumni