Born: 11 November 1926, United States
Died: 25 July 2017
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Marian Cleeves
Dr Jess Bugeja on Dr Marian Diamond transcript
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Marian Diamond is considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience, not least for her experimental discovery of brain plasticity—the fact that the brain physically changes with experience—which directly contradicted the scientific beliefs of the time. Shortly before her groundbreaking 1964 paper was to be published, she found out that her secondary co-authors (three men), were listed before her, and her own name had been placed in parenthesis. Having both initiated the project and done the bulk of the work, she confronted her colleague, whose excuse was that he had never written an article with a female co-writer. “Treat it like another name,” she responded. In the end, her name appeared first.