Neva Abelson

Who was Neva Abelson?

Neva Martin Abelson was a distinguished research physician who co-discovered the life-saving blood test for the Rh blood factor.

She graduated from Washington State University with a B.S. degree in chemistry. After medical school she became a pediatrician. Her research at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a professor of clinical pathology, involved blood groups, blood diseases of infants, and the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. She published a book, Topics in Blood Banking, in 1974. She received the Emily Cooley Memorial Award from the American Association of Blood Banks.

She was married to Philip Abelson, a physicist, science writer and longtime editor of Science magazine.

Their daughter, Ellen Abelson Cherniavsky, now retired, worked as an aviation researcher at The MITRE Corporation in Virginia.