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Marian Diamond
Marian Cleeves Diamond (November 11, 1926 – July 25, 2017) was an American neuroscientist. She and her team were the first to publish evidence that the brain can change with experience and improve with enrichment, what is now called neuroplasticity. She was a professor of anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Diamond's research on the brain of Albert Einstein contributed to the understanding of the roles of glial cells in the brain. Other published research explored differences between the cerebral cortex of male and female rats, the link between positive thinking and immune health, and the role of women in science.
Born in Glendale, California, to Montague Cleeves and Rosa Marian Wamphler Cleeves as the sixth and last child in the family. Her father was an English physician and her mother a Latin teacher at Berkeley High School. Diamond grew up in La Crescenta and with her siblings she was educated near home at La Crescenta grammar school, at Clark Junior High, and at Glendale High School. Before going to University of California, Berkeley, she studied at Glendale Community College. She played tennis at Berkeley, earning a letter.
In 1948, Diamond obtained her bachelor's degree from Berkeley. She spent a summer at the University of Oslo after graduating. When returning to Berkeley for graduate studies, she became the first female graduate student in the department of anatomy. Her doctoral dissertation thesis on human anatomy was titled "Functional Interrelationships of the Hypothalamus and the Neurohypophysis" and was published in 1953. While studying for her PhD degree, Diamond also began to teach, a passion that continued well into her eighties.
During 1952 to 1953 she worked as a research assistant at Harvard University. She became the first woman science instructor at Cornell University teaching human biology and comparative anatomy from 1955 to 1958. In 1960 she returned to the University of California, Berkeley with the role of lecturer.
In the role as neuroanatomist, she joined an ongoing research project with psychologists David Krech, Mark Rosenzweig, and chemist Edward Bennett. By 1964, this group had the first evidence, from anatomical measurements, of plasticity in the mammalian cerebral cortex.
UC Berkeley invited Diamond to be an assistant professor in 1965, progressing later to be a full professor, and finally, professor emeritus until her death in 2017. In 1984, Diamond and her associates had access to sufficient tissue from Albert Einstein's brain to make the first ever analysis of it, followed by publication of their research. The 1985 paper On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein created some controversy in academia over the role of glial cells. However, it also ushered in new interest in neuroglia.
Her YouTube Integrative Biology lectures were the second most popular college course in the world in 2010.
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Marian Diamond
Marian Cleeves Diamond (November 11, 1926 – July 25, 2017) was an American neuroscientist. She and her team were the first to publish evidence that the brain can change with experience and improve with enrichment, what is now called neuroplasticity. She was a professor of anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Diamond's research on the brain of Albert Einstein contributed to the understanding of the roles of glial cells in the brain. Other published research explored differences between the cerebral cortex of male and female rats, the link between positive thinking and immune health, and the role of women in science.
Born in Glendale, California, to Montague Cleeves and Rosa Marian Wamphler Cleeves as the sixth and last child in the family. Her father was an English physician and her mother a Latin teacher at Berkeley High School. Diamond grew up in La Crescenta and with her siblings she was educated near home at La Crescenta grammar school, at Clark Junior High, and at Glendale High School. Before going to University of California, Berkeley, she studied at Glendale Community College. She played tennis at Berkeley, earning a letter.
In 1948, Diamond obtained her bachelor's degree from Berkeley. She spent a summer at the University of Oslo after graduating. When returning to Berkeley for graduate studies, she became the first female graduate student in the department of anatomy. Her doctoral dissertation thesis on human anatomy was titled "Functional Interrelationships of the Hypothalamus and the Neurohypophysis" and was published in 1953. While studying for her PhD degree, Diamond also began to teach, a passion that continued well into her eighties.
During 1952 to 1953 she worked as a research assistant at Harvard University. She became the first woman science instructor at Cornell University teaching human biology and comparative anatomy from 1955 to 1958. In 1960 she returned to the University of California, Berkeley with the role of lecturer.
In the role as neuroanatomist, she joined an ongoing research project with psychologists David Krech, Mark Rosenzweig, and chemist Edward Bennett. By 1964, this group had the first evidence, from anatomical measurements, of plasticity in the mammalian cerebral cortex.
UC Berkeley invited Diamond to be an assistant professor in 1965, progressing later to be a full professor, and finally, professor emeritus until her death in 2017. In 1984, Diamond and her associates had access to sufficient tissue from Albert Einstein's brain to make the first ever analysis of it, followed by publication of their research. The 1985 paper On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein created some controversy in academia over the role of glial cells. However, it also ushered in new interest in neuroglia.
Her YouTube Integrative Biology lectures were the second most popular college course in the world in 2010.
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