Thomas Hunt Morgan
1866–1945 (age 79)
Biologist/Geneticist
Biography
Thomas Hunt Morgan, born 1866, transformed biology by showing through fruit fly experiments that genes lay on chromosomes and that heredity could be studied experimentally, earning the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
He balanced research with teaching, mentoring a generation of biologists at Columbia University and later in California, and he is remembered with reverence at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum.