About Mary Amdur
Mary Ochsenhirt Amdur (February 18, 1921 – February 16, 1998) was an American toxicologist and public health researcher who worked primarily on pollution. She was charged with studying the effects of the 1948 Donora smog, specifically looking into the effects of inhaling sulfuric acid by experimenting on guinea pigs. Her findings on the respiratory effects related to sulfuric acid led to her being threatened, her funding being pulled, and her losing her job at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1953. Undeterred, she carried on her research in a different role at Harvard, and subsequently at MIT and New York University. Despite the early controversy related to her work, it was used in the creation of standards in air pollution, and towards the end of her life she received numerous awards and accolades. == Early life == Mary Amdur was born in 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1943 from the University of Pittsburgh, moving to Cornell University to study biochemistry at the postgraduate level. She received her PhD in biochemistry in 1946, writing her thesis on the "Role of Manganese and Choline in Bone Formation in the Rat". She met her husband, Benjamin Amdur, while they were both undergraduates at the University of Pittsburgh. They were married in October 1944 in Rochester, New York.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.