Carrie Derick

Who was Carrie Derick?

Carrie Matilda Derick was a Canadian botanist and geneticist, the first female professor in a Canadian University, and the founder of McGill University's Genetics Department.

Born in Clarenceville, Quebec on January 14, Carrie was educated at the Clarenceville Academy and received her teacher training at the McGill Normal School before becoming a school teacher in Clarenceville and Montréal. In 1890, she received a B.A. from McGill University, graduating at the top of her class in natural science with first-class honors. She began teaching at the Trafalgar Institute for Girls in 1890 while also working part-time as McGill's first female botany "demonstrator."

In 1891, Derick began her master's program at McGill under David Penhallow and received her M.A. in botany in 1896. She attended the University of Bonn in 1901 and completed the research required for a Ph.D. but was not awarded an official doctorate since the University did not give women Ph.D. degrees. She then returned to McGill and "continued to work, teach, and administer" in the botany department. In 1905, "after seven years of lecturing, assisting Penhallow with his classes, researching and publishing, without any pay increments or offers of promotion, Derick wrote directly to Principal Peterson and was promoted to assistant professor" at one-third the salary of her male counterparts. Derick was only officially appointed as professor of comparative morphology and genetics by McGill in 1912 after three years of running the department following Penhallow's death. She was the first woman both at McGill and in Canada to achieve university professorship. She retired in 1929.