Background
Stickel was born in Hillman, Michigan.
Stickel was born in Hillman, Michigan.
Stickel was born in Hillman, Michigan. She obtained her Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University in 1936, graduating as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She went to the University of Michigan for both her master"s degree and Doctor of Philosophy and acquired them in 1938 and 1949, respectively.
Her research focused extensively on contaminants in wildlife ecosystems and her research on the effects of the pesticide DDT helped form the basis for Rachel Carson"s book Silent Spring. She was also the first woman to both become a senior scientist as a civil servant of the United States government and to be director for a national research laboratory. The first major publication Stickel made was an environment report in 1946, the first of a number of reports she would make on the ecological effects of the pesticide DDT. These reports, among the rest of her body of work, helped lead to the creation of wildlife toxicology as a field of study, as the impacts could affect not just wildlife on land, but also in rivers and in the soil.
She first joined the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in 1942 after obtaining her bachelor"s degree.
Stickel retained the position for a decade before retiring in 1982.
Phi Beta Sigma.