Helen Sharsmith
American botanist (1905-1982)
Helen Katherine Meyers Sharsmith (August 26, 1905 – November 10, 1982) was an American biologist and educator. She was one of the first women botanists at the University of California and is recognized for her contributions to botanical research there.
Biography
Helen Sharsmith was born in on August 26, 1905 in Oakland, California. She studied zoology at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), earning a Bachelor's degree in zoology in 1927 and then a Master's degree and teaching credentials in 1928. For the next three years, she taught at Lassen High School and Junior College in Susanville.
She met Carl Sharsmith in 1930, at a summer class at the Yosemite Field School of Natural History in Yosemite National Park. They married in 1931. During this time, Carl was studying at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and there Helen met botanist Carl Epling and carried out research with UCLA botany professor Flora Murray Scott.
In 1932 they both transferred to UC Berkeley to enroll in the botany PhD program. Both were advised by Herbert Mason and received their doctorates in 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helen Sharsmith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.