Doris Mable Cochran

• Name — Doris Mable Cochran • Born — 18 May 1898 • Died — 22 May 1968 • Birthplace — North Girard, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Place of death — Hyattsville, Maryland • Field — Biology, herpetology • Workplaces — United States Department of War, Smithsonian Institution • Education — George Washington University University of Maryland, College Park Corcoran Art School • Doctoral Advisor — Leonhard Hess Stejneger • Known for — Study of reptiles, frogs • Awards — Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

Born in North Girard, Pennsylvania, she grew up in Washington, D.C., after her father transferred there for a government job. While an undergraduate student at George Washington University (A.B. 1920, M.S. 1921), she worked for the War Department and became Aide in the Division of Herpetology at the United States National Museum. Although the museum was under the curatorship of Leonhard Stejneger, Cochran was responsible for the administration of the herpetological collections. She graduated with her MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1928. In 1942, she went on to become Associate Curator just prior to Stejneger's death. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 1933 with a thesis on blue crab musculature. She became the first woman Curator in 1956 until her retirement in 1968 on her 70th birthday. After completing studies at Corcoran Art School and developing her talents as an artist, Cochran became a scientific illustrator not only for her own works, but for those of her colleagues. Cochran's research was focused primarily on the herpetofauna of the West Indies and South America, particularly Haiti. She published 90 taxonomic papers between 1922 and her death (four days after her retirement in 1968) in which she described eight new genera and 125 species and subspecies as well as wartime booklets for the military identifying venomous reptiles. Her 20 years of studies of the West Indies culminated in The Herpetology of Hispaniola in 1941. She visited Haiti twice, in 1935 and 1962–1963. In Haiti she would work with Adolfo Lutz and his daughter, Bertha. Her most popular book was Living Amphibians of the World, published in 1961. When she visited Brazil, Cochran received a donation of 3,000 Brazilian frogs from Adolfo Lutz, and wrote about South American frogs in Frogs of Southeastern Brazil in 1954 and Frogs of Colombia in 1970 (posthumously).