Marion Elizabeth Stilwell Cave

Marion Elizabeth Cave
Born
Marion Elizabeth Stilwell

February 11, 1904
Rochester, NY
DiedSeptember 26, 1995 (aged 91)
California
Alma materA.B. University of Colorado Boulder 1924

A.M.University of Colorado Boulder 1925

PhD University of California, Berkeley 1936
Known forPlant Microphotography, Plant embryology
SpouseRoy Clinton Cave (m. 1928 – 1991)
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship 1952
Scientific career
FieldsBotany, Cytologist, Embryologist, Geneticist
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley 1936 – 1943

Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs 1944–1945

University of California, Berkeley 1945 – 1981
Thesis Cytological and genetical investigations involving Crepis foetida, C. commutata, C. eritreensis, and C. thomsonii
Doctoral advisorErnest Brown Babcock

Marion Elizabeth Cave (11 February 1904 – 26 September 1995) was an American plant embryologist and cytogeneticist. She obtained her PhD from University of California, Berkeley where she pioneered the approach to distinguish plant taxonomy using genetics. She continued this work at Berkeley as a research associate. While there, she would be the first person to count the chromosomes in algae, earn her a Guggenheim fellowship in 1952. In addition to her research, she was success at obtaining National Science Foundation funding to create a service that would annually inform how many chromosomes each plant species had to help the field of plant cytology flourish. For her contributions, Volume 33 of Madroño, a genus (Marionella) of Delesseriaceae, and a subgenus (Mscavea) of Echeandia were all dedicated to her.