Rhoda Erdmann

Rhoda Erdmann was a German cell biologist. Working in the early 1900s, Erdmann was a pioneer of cellular biology and one of few women in her field at the time. Erdmann's work centered around the reproduction of protozoa, with a particular interest in tissue culture and in vitro cellular reproduction. Her work as a protozoologist earned her a graduate student lecturing position at Yale University, though her time in America was cut short by anti-German sentiment surrounding World War I. After a forcible incarceration and then deportation in 1919, Erdmann took a research position at the Institute for Cancer Research at the Charité Hospital of the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. There she instituted the first department for experimental cytology in Germany. She worked at the University for almost 10 years before receiving on official professorship in 1929. Her work was interrupted yet again with the rise of Nazism in 1933, when she was stripped of her professorship position. She died in Berlin in 1935.