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| Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) |
Born September 25, 1866 in the Hunt-Morgan House, Thomas Hunt Morgan is known as the “Father of Modern Genetics” for his work with the fruit fly (drosophila melanogaster). After attending the State College of Kentucky, he received a Ph.d. from Johns Hopkins University and began teaching at Bryn Mawr before becoming a professor in experimental zoology at Columbia University, where he ran his famous “fly room.” Internationally known, Dr. Morgan became the first Kentuckian to win the Nobel Prize, doing so in 1933 for his work concerning the role of genes in heredity. He eventually established the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, which has produced 7 Nobel Prize winners since its inception. He passed away in 1945 at the age of 79.
We’ve written of Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan’s family home.