Neena Betty Schwartz (December 10, 1926 – April 15, 2018) was an American endocrinologist and William Deering Professor of Endocrinology Emerita in the Department of Neurobiology at Northwestern University.
[4] In 1954 Schwartz was hired as a physiology instructor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, which she left a year later to take a position at Michael Reese Hospital.
[1]: xv Schwartz's research group studied the feedback mechanisms that govern hormonal signaling pathways in the female reproductive cycle, using rats as an animal model.
Her work played a major role in the developing the modern understanding of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis in endocrinology and was particularly significant in discovering the hormone inhibin.
A hypothetical additional hormone given the name inhibin had been suggested years prior based on work with male animals, potentially being secreted from the testes.
[17] The lawsuit was dropped after Robert Marston, then head of the NIH, met with representatives of the groups, including Schwartz, and committed to appointing more women.
[18] Schwartz was one of forty women in non-traditional professions interviewed by filmmaker and artist Michelle Citron for her 1983 film What You Take for Granted.
[1] She began writing the book "because no one had documented the feminist movement in science" and concluded as she wrote that revealing her sexuality was necessary to telling the story.
[4] She hopes that the book will "provide young gay scientists or other professionals with a lesson of possibilities for success and happiness without such splits in their lives.".