Hudson Hoagland


Hudson Hoagland was an American neuroscientist, a Guggenheim Fellow, the founder of the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research and a recipient of the American Humanist award.

Career

Hoagland was born in Rockaway, New Jersey and graduated from Columbia University in 1921. He received his Master's Degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1924 and his doctoral degree in biology at Harvard in 1927. He conducted studies of electrical brain waves to shed light on various issues including schizophrenia. He helped with the creation of the birth control pill in partnership with Gregory Pincus and Dr. Min-Cheuh Chang. With Gregory Pincus, he was in charge of the formation of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts in 1944. It has since been renamed the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research and is a research center for biological discovery. He was the director and president of the Foundation until 1967 and was also a professor at Tufts University and at Boston University until his retirement.

Recognition

Hougland was a Guggenheim Fellow from 1944-1945 and received honorary doctorates from Colby College, Wesleyan University, Clark University, Bates College, Boston University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He received the Modern Medicine Award in 1965 and the Worcester Engineering Society Award in 1969.
He was the president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a trustee of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
In 1965 he was named the Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. In 1973 the Society of Biological Psychiatry gave him their Gold Medal Award.
The Hudson Hoagland Society was created in 1985 in honor of Hudson Hoagland to recognize major annual contributors to the Worcester Foundation.

Family

He was married to Anna Plummer Hoagland, who died in 1973. Together they had four children, sons Dr. Mahlon Hoagland and Peter and daughters Joan Humphrey and Joan Holland. Hoagland died on March 4, 1982 in Southboro, Massachusetts.