In Memoriam

Green Pioneer

Helen A. Stafford [biology 1954–87]

Helen A. Stafford

Helen Stafford [biology 1954–87] was the first Reed professor to win a Guggenheim Fellowship.

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To pursue her PhD, Helen went to the University of Pennsylvania; prejudice nearly prevented her from teaching botany to male students, but she persevered, teaching the course and earning a doctorate in 1951 for her discoveries about plant enzymes. Helen went to the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral scholar; meanwhile, her exemplary record of research, publishing, and teaching impressed Lewis Kleinholz [biology 1946–80], who recognized how much she could strengthen the department at Reed. She arrived on campus in 1954 as the only female faculty member in the division of mathematics and natural sciences.

It was a tumultuous time: President Duncan Ballantine [1952–54] resigned her first year and department chair Ralph Macy [1942–55] the next. Biology was the smallest department at the college, and Helen was challenged by the limited facilities available in the basement of Eliot Hall. Helen began lobbying for grants from the newly organized National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health—both helped provide resources for research. She and her colleagues worked to integrate classroom teaching with vigorous research by both faculty and students, and transformed the department into one of the top biology programs in the U.S.

Helen was the first Reed professor to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, which she took at Harvard in 1958. She received unbroken funding of her research from NSF for over 30 years. She also was a member of the reviewing panel for requests for NSF research grants in plant physiology. Her stature within her field led to her serving as commissioner of the Committee for Undergraduate Education in Biological Sciences, and as president of the Phytochemical Society of North America. She was a member of the editorial board of Plant Physiology for nearly 30 years and editor of Recent Advances in Phytochemistry.

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