Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945)

The son of Ellen Key and Charles Hunt Morgan, T. H. Morgan was born on 25 September 1866 into a prominent family in Lexington, Kentucky. Morgan grew up exploring the environment around his childhood home and developed a special interest in fossils. As a young man, he spent a summer employed doing geological and biological fieldwork in the Kentucky mountains. He received his BS degree from the University of Kentucky and went on to pursue graduate work at Johns Hopkins University [9]. At Johns Hopkins, William Keith Brooks [10] supervised Morgan?s dissertation research, which examined the embryology [7] of sea spiders. Morgan was also influenced by his professors Henry Newell Martin and William Henry Howell, both of whom encouraged a physiological approach to biology. Morgan studied alongside fellow students Edwin Grant Conklin [11] and Ross Granville Harrison [12], with whom he remained close friends throughout his life. Although Edmund Beecher Wilson [13] had left Johns Hopkins by the time Morgan arrived, they later became close friends and associates. Morgan received his PhD in 1890 and remained at Johns Hopkins during the following year as a Bruce Fellow.