Crossing the Color and Gender Divide

Beatrix McCleary Hamburg, M.D., was the first African American women to attend Yale School of Medicine. After graduation in 1948 and training in child psychiatry, her research and clinical practice focused on behavioral and developmental issues among adolescents, especially minority children. In her early research, she was drawn to problems of teenage violence and bullying. Her insights led to the development of novel, school-based peer counseling programs that proved to be effective interventions and since have been widely applied in conflict resolution work. In 1992 she began a six-year term as president of the William T. Grant Foundation, where she supported funding promoting research to foster healthy lives and reduce violence among children. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1979 and is the mother of the current commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D.