Distinguished WVSU Alumna to Share Experiences on Impactful Scientific Career

10/17/2022

---

Contact: Jack Bailey
(304) 766-4109
Jbaile19@wvstateu.edu
   
INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State University (WVSU) alumna Dr. Linda Meade-Tollin will share her story about how education influenced her life and career path during a free online seminar on Oct. 20. 

The seminar will begin at 7 p.m. on Zoom. For those who are interested, a viewing of the online seminar will take place in Hamblin Hall 107 on WVSU’s campus, but Meade-Tollin will not be present in person, only via Zoom.

As a Research Assistant Professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine/Department of Surgery, Meade-Tollin was a rare occurrence: an African American woman who was director of a biomedical research lab, and a member of the Arizona Cancer Center. She also served as the Director of the Office of Women in Science and Engineering in the Department of Women’s Studies, designed and taught graduate courses, and developed and presented workshops and conferences supporting female physicians for the American Association of Medical Colleges.

In 1993, she became the first female chairperson of the Executive Board of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers and received the Henry Hill Award. Meade-Tollin has been a reviewer for the international journal “Frontiers in Oncology,” and retired as a Research Assistant Professor Emerita in 2008.

“I will share my recollections of how I came to attend West Virginia State College (now University), of the experiences and strengths my WVSC education provided, of selected challenges I have encountered and handled during my journey, and of how my responses to those challenges have influenced my path,” she said. “May this presentation provide my perspective on why I have made certain choices and generate reflection on choices we all must consider.”

Meade-Tollin was born in London, West Virginia, where her father was a dentist, musician, and community activist, and her mother was a high school counselor and English and French teacher. She started elementary school in the third grade and transferred to desegregated schooling at Cedar Grove High School. She said she always loved learning, especially about science, and entered WVSC at age 16. She was a teaching assistant for biology classes and graduated cum laude with a chemistry degree and minors in biology and mathematics from WVSC in 1964.

After graduation, she moved to New York City and applied to graduate school while working. She received a master’s degree in biochemistry from Hunter College in 1969. She was also one of the first graduates of the newly established biochemistry doctorate degree program at City University of New York in 1972. 

In her career, she has held faculty positions at the State University of New York, Rockefeller University, and Morehouse College of Medicine. She was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in the Biochemistry Department of the University of Arizona in 1975. She married a colleague and stayed at the University of Arizona, holding various positions over the next few decades. 
 
To view the free live seminar, go to https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83085622997?pwd=c1YxV0xMR0M0TTg1eXd3U1JYZlNydz09.

Follow West Virginia State University on Facebook, Instagram @wvsu_official, and Twitter @WVStateU.
 
West Virginia State University is a public, land-grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi-generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service, and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.