Roger Airliner Young was born August 20, 1899 in Clifton Forge, Virginia.  In 1916, Young enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study music. She wrote in the yearbook: "Not failure, but low aim is a crime." Though her grades were poor at the beginning of her college career, her teachers saw promise in her.  One such teacher was Ernest Everett Just, a prominent Black biologist and head of the Zoology Department at Howard University.  Young eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1923, and earned her master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1926.
 

The following summer, Just invited Young to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, as his research assistant. The first Black woman admitted to the lab, Young would spend ten research seasons at Woods Hole conducting research.  In 1929, Just left for Europe, leaving Young to take over his duties as head of Howard’s Zoology Department with no official recognition or title. 

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In 1930, an overburdened and underprepared Young took qualifying exams for the doctoral program at the University of Chicago. She failed the tests. Undeterred, she returned to teach at Howard. During the 1930s, she authored and coauthored several papers on different aspects of marine biology.

Young was passed over and was not named Just’s official successor as head of the Zoology Department.  One of her colleagues suggested she enter the doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania, and helped her secure a grant to fund her studies. In 1940, Young earned her PhD, becoming the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in zoology.

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After obtaining her doctorate, Young became an assistant professor at the North Carolina College for Negroes and Shaw University. Later in her scientific career, Young held teaching positions at Bishop College, Paul Quinn University, and at colleges in Mississippi and Louisiana. In 1960, Young became a science professor at Jackson State University.

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Young died on November 9, 1964 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Young contributed a great deal to science. She studied the effects of direct and indirect radiation on sea urchin eggs, on the structures that control the salt concentration in paramecium, as well as hydration and dehydration of living cells. She was recognized in a 2005 Congressional Resolution along with four other African American women "who have broken through many barriers to achieve greatness in science.” A consortium of environmental and conservation groups established the Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Marine Conservation Diversity Fellowship in Young’s honor, to support young African Americans who want to become involved in marine environmental conservation work.

 

Excerpted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Arliner_Young and https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/roger-arliner-young.