Mildred Stratton Wilson

Mildred Stratton Wilson (April 25, 1909 – August 6, 1973) was an American zoologist, whose work on copepods was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955.

She earned a two-year teaching certificate in 1927 at Western Washington Teachers College in Bellingham, Washington, and taught in Marysville from 1927 to 1934; meanwhile she attended summer plant biology courses at Puget Sound Biological Station (PSBS).

Mildred Stratton Wilson established a solid record of scientific research without an advanced degree and without any official university affiliation.

[2] In 1948, she remained a collaborator at NMNH, but her work took her to Alaska, where she was the Territorial Entomologist with the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

[3] She was also the first Alaskan to receive funding from the National Science Foundation,[5] which she held from 1957 to 1967 for her work on freshwater copepods.

[3] Wilson wanted to create a monograph of the genus Diaptomus in North America, but was unable to complete it before her death.

In the fall of 1927 she started fully teaching at Marysville Grade School and became the head of the Stratton family.

The family physician Dr. J. W. Rose gave her moral and financial support and helped to fund her classes at PSBS.