Remembering Tilly Edinger, The Pioneering Brainy Woman Who Fled Nazi Germany And Founded Palaeoneurology gizmodo.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gizmodo.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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By studying the endocasts of extinct animals, we can identify when major evolutionary innovations likely occurred. And this helps us pinpoint the origins of certain behaviours, such as flight, or the transition to land.
Tilly Edinger and 100 years of ‘fossil brains’
Tilly Edinger (1897–1967), a vertebrate palaeontologist from Frankfurt, Germany, founded palaeoneurology in 1921 by combining her unique training in geology and neurology.
She was the first person to apply a deep time perspective to brain evolution, and consider endocasts from throughout the geological record as more than mere curiosities.
But perhaps what is particularly remarkable is that Edinger pioneered this whole new field of research while living under an increasingly restrictive Nazi Germany, from where she was eventually forced into exile.
The Untold Truth Of The Forgotten Women Refugee Scientists Of WWII
By Francesca Coppola/Feb. 23, 2021 11:25 am EDT
When Jewish refugees came to the United States during World War II, history often repeats such famous names as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Hannah Arendt. But they were not the only intellectuals who attempted to flee Nazi-dominated Europe. Hundreds of other scholars and professors tried.
Among them were several highly qualified women scientists who looked to American universities to find a safe haven where they could continue to pursue their careers. In spite of their academic achievements, they encountered many obstacles, and their journeys were often arduous during a time when leaving Europe was becoming increasingly difficult.
Adriane Lam laid the foundation for her future scientific career when she was still an undergraduate, thanks to her first academic conference.
Not only was she able to present her own research, she forged crucial connections with established scholars, who became advisors years down the road during her master’s and doctoral programs. Conferences are an important part of the academic ecosystem, giving scholars, industry professionals and science communicators the opportunity to come together and share data, teaching strategies, new initiatives and more.
They are also expensive to attend which can put them out of reach for students already struggling to pay their bills.