In 1949, Jewel Plummer Cobb, Ph.D. became an independent investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory, where she studied the inhibition of cell division in sea urchin (Arbacia) eggs. This was a research interest she would develop in later years, specifically how hormones, ultraviolet light and chemotherapeutic drugs cause changes in cell division.

Cobb was a distinguished professor and university administrator who conducted trailblazing cancer research, including studies that advanced the understanding of how skin cells that produce melanin become cancerous. But she was also deeply concerned about equity in American life. She called health care delivery “one of the tragedies in America.” In a 1989 book, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, she stated, “We have what I would call educational genocide…when I see more black students in the laboratories than on the football field, I’ll be happy.”

In the early 1960s, Dr. Cobb and longtime collaborator Dr. Jane Wright, demonstrated the effectiveness of methotrexate in treating skin and lung cancer and childhood leukemia. The drug is now used in treatment of many types of cancer.

In 1981, Dr. Cobb was named president of California State University at Fullerton (CSUF), where she established faculty teams to tutor students in mathematics. She also secured funding to construct a new science lab, a computer science building, and a gerontology center. During her tenure at CSUF, she also secured funding for the university’s first on-campus student residence hall and established the institution’s first endowed professorship.

She was elected to the National Institute of Medicine in 1974, was the first Black woman appointed to the National Science Board, and the inaugural recipient of the Reginald Wilson Award for significant accomplishments in the area of diversity in higher education.