Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Ruth Wendell Washburn (1890–1975), Ph.D.

Ruth Wendell Washburn earned her BA from Vassar College (1913), her MA from Radcliffe College (1922), and her Ph.D. from Yale University (1929). She began her career at Yale in 1923, was an Assistant Professor at the Yale Clinic of Child Psychology and from 1934 to 1938 was an Assistant Professor of Child Development at Yale. After leaving Yale, she taught briefly at Sarah Lawrence College (1938) and worked as a consultant in child development for Milton Prep School (1938–1971), the New Hampshire Children’s Aid Society (1938–1955), and the Shady Hill School in Cambridge (1943–1962). She also authored several books on the topic of child psychology, including The Smiling and Laughing of Infants (1929), Children Have Their Reasons (1942), and Wisdom Begins at Birth (1967).