Isabel Pérez Farfante
| Isabel C. Pérez Farfante | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 24, 1916 Havana, Cuba |
| Died | August 20, 2009 (aged 93) Florida |
| Nationality | Cuban |
| Occupation | Carcinologist |
Isabel Pérez Farfante (July 24, 1916 – August 20, 2009) was a Cuban-born carcinologist. She was the first Cuban woman to receive her Ph.D. from an Ivy League school. She returned to Cuba from the United States only to be blacklisted by Fidel Castro's government. She and her family escaped Cuba, and she became one of the world's foremost zoologists studying prawns. She discovered large populations of shrimp off the coast of Cuba and published one of the most noted books on shrimps: "Penaeoid and Sergestoid Shrimps and Prawns of the World. Keys and Diagnoses for the Families and Genera."
Isabel Pérez Farfante was born July 24, 1916 in Havana, Cuba. Her parents had moved from Spain to Cuba. When she was a teenager, her parents sent her to Asturias, Spain to attend high school. Farfante went on to attend the Complutense University of Madrid, only to be sent back to Cuba, since her family were Republicans, during the Spanish Civil War. Upon her return to Cuba, she finished her Bachelor of Science in 1938 from the University of Havana. After graduation she worked as an associate professor at the University. She married economist and geographer, Gerardo Canet Álvarez in 1941.
Pérez Farfante was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1942 for biology and ecology. This award, along with an Alexander Agassiz Fellowship in oceanography and zoology, and a fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, helped support her attendance at Radcliffe College. She received her master's in biology in 1944. This made her one of the first women to attend Harvard University. She then went on to get her Ph.D. from Radcliffe. During this time she met Thomas Barbour in Washington, D.C. Farfante was struggling to garner support for her projects in her department, and Barbour advised she work at Harvard. Barbour promised to help her obtain work there, and followed through, from 1946 until 1948 she was Associate Curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. In 1948 she earned her Ph.D. from Radcliffe, making her the first Cuban woman to obtain her doctoral degree from an Ivy League school. After graduation, she returned to Cuba.
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