Nellie Maria de Cottrell Payne (December 11, 1900 – July 19, 1990) was an American entomologist and agricultural chemist. Her research on insect responses to low temperature had practical agricultural and environmental applications.
Early life and education Emily Maria de Cottrell Payne was born in 1900, in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, daughter of James E. Payne Sr. and Mary Emmeline Cottrell Payne. Her father was superintendent of an agricultural station.Annual Catalogue of the Officers, Students, and Graduates of the Kansas State Agricultural College (Kansas State University):73. She had two brothers, Amos and James."Out of Town Notes" Alma Enterprise (December 11, 1914): 1. via Newspapers.com She earned a bachelor's (1920) and master's (1921) degrees in agricultural chemistry and entomology from the Kansas State Agricultural College, and a Ph.D. in 1925 from the University of Minnesota."Nellie Maria de Cottrell Payne" in Marilyn Ogilvie and Joy Harvey, eds., The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century (Routledge 2003): 993. Under the advisement of Royal N. Chapman in the Division of Entomology and Economic Zoology, her dissertation concerned the effects of low temperatures on insects.Nellie Maria de Cottrell Payne, "Freezing and Survival of Insects at Low Temperature" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1925).
Career and research contributions During her graduate studies, Payne taught briefly at Lindenwood College in Missouri."News of the State" Columbia Evening Missourian (September 9, 1921): 6. via Newspapers.com As a young scholar she spent several years as an editor and staff member at Biological Abstracts. She was named a National Research Council Fellow in 1925, to work in the zoology department at the University of Pennsylvania.Nellie M. Payne, "Cold Hardiness in the Japanese Beetle, Popilia Japonica Newman" Biological Bulletin 55(3)(September 1928): 163-179. From 1933 to 1937 Payne taught entomology at the University of Minnesota,Nellie M. C. Payne, General Physiology of Insects: Outlines of Lectures (University of Minnesota 1933). while spending summers as a researcher at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.Nellie M. Payne, "Measures of Insect Cold Hardiness" Biological Bulletin 52(6)(June 1927): 449-457. Her research at Woods Hole involved low temperature effects on invertebrates and the physiological effects of parasitoids on their hosts.Redfield, A.C. (ed). 1937. Biological Bulletin LXXIII. Lancaster Press, Inc
Available online: https://archive.org/details/biologicalbullet731937lill Payne left academia in 1937, to be a researcher for American Cyanamid; in 1942 she shared a patent on an insecticide with fellow researcher Walter Ericks.U. S. Patent No. 2289541, granted on July 14, 1942, to Walter Ericks and Nellie M. C. Payne. She received a patent on another insecticide in 1949, as sole inventor.U. S. Patent No. 2469340, granted on May 3, 1949, to Nellie M. C. Payne. In 1957, she accepted a position with Velsicol Chemical Corporation, and stayed with them until her retirement in 1971."Nellie M. Payne, ESA Fellow (1940)" Entomological Society of America.
In 1921, Payne was elected to membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1940 she was named a fellow of the Entomological Society of America."Nellie M. Payne, ESA Fellow (1940)" Entomological Society of America. She was also an active member of the New York Academy of Sciences,"Nellie M. Payne, ESA Fellow (1940)" Entomological Society of America. was a National Research Council fellow in zoology at U. Pennsylvania (1925–27), a member of the American Chemical Society, and the American Society of Zoologists.Cattrel, J. (ed). 1967. American Men of Science 11th ed. R.R. Bowker Co., NY, NY.Wayne, T.K. 2011. American Women of Science since 1900, vol 1. ABC-CLIO/Greenwood LLC, Santa Barbara, CA. 1025 pp.
Payne conducted some of the seminal work on insect cold hardiness, including that on aquatic insects, Popillia japonica, and numerous forest insect pests. It continues to be cited as a foundation for later research.Lauritz Sømme, Invertebrates in Hot and Cold Arid Environments (Springer Science and Business Media 2012): 174. M. S. Mani, Ecology and Biogeography of High Altitude Insects (Springer Science and Business Media 2013): 441. "Insect Cold Hardiness" in S. R. Leather, K. F. A. Walters, and J. S. Bale, The Ecology of Insect Overwintering (Cambridge University Press 1995): 120.
Personal life Nellie Payne died at home in Chicago in 1990, age 89."Nellie M. Decottrell Payne" Chicago Tribune (July 22, 1990).
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