Which school did Joan Murrell Owens go to from 1954 to 1984?
Joan Murrell Owens Joan Murrell Owens ( June 30 , 1933 – May 25 , 2011 ) was an American educator and marine biologist specializing in corals . She received degrees in geology , fine art , and guidance counseling . She described a new genus , Rhombopsammia , and three new species of button corals , R . niphada , R . squiresi , and Letepsammia franki . Early life and family . Joan Murrell was born on June 30 , 1933 , in Miami , Florida , to William and Leola Murrell . She was the youngest of their three daughters . Her father was a dentist . Encouraged by her parents , from an early age Joan became interested in the life of the oceans , and she hoped to study marine biology professionally . Her father was an avid fisherman who took his wife and daughters on weekend fishing trips , during which Owens became interested in marine life . One of her favorite books was The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau . Mueller graduated from Miamis Booker T . Washington High School in 1950 and was awarded two scholarships , one from the Pepsi-Cola Company and a Sarah Maloney ( Art Scholarship ) at Fisk University . Joan entered Fisk University in 1950 . The scholarships subsidized part of her education with her father paying the major portion of her tuition . However , the university did not offer a program in the marine sciences . Instead , she majored in fine art and received her degree in 1954 ; her minors were mathematics and psychology . For graduate study , Murrell entered the University of Michigan with the intention to study commercial art , but she changed her focus . She received a Master of Science degree in guidance counseling with an emphasis on reading therapy in 1956 . Teaching and research . Joan Murrell taught for two years at the University of Michigans Childrens Psychiatric Hospital , and then joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington , D.C . in 1957 , where she specialized in teaching remedial English . In the 1960s , she moved to Newton , Massachusetts . While there , for the Institute for Services to Education she designed programs for teaching English to educationally disadvantaged students . This work served as a model for the Upward Bound program of the United States Department of Education . She returned to Washington ; with a renewed interest in marine biology , and the encouragement of her friend and colleague Philip Morrison , she entered George Washington University in 1970 . As that institution had no undergraduate program in marine science , she constructed an equivalent with a major in geology and a minor in zoology . She received her B.S . in geology in 1973 and her M.S . in 1976 . Continuing work toward her doctorate , she returned to Howard as a professor of geology in 1976 . Because Owens had sickle cell anemia traits , her research was limited by her inability to dive underwater to search for specimens . Instead , she did a laboratory project at the Smithsonian Institution , working with coral samples collected by a British expedition in 1880 . Her doctoral research concerned certain species of deep-sea button corals , a group of stony corals that are distinctive in that they do not form colonies . Her dissertation was titled Microstructural Changes in the Scleractinian Families Micrabaciidae and Fungiidae and their Taxonomic and Ecologic Implications . She received her PhD from George Washington University in 1984 . Now publishing as Joan Murrell Owens , she continued her laboratory work at the Smithsonian , classifying and studying button corals , while advancing to the rank of associate professor in the department of geology and geography at Howard University in 1986 . She described the new genus Rhombopsammia and its two species in 1986 , and added a new species to the genus Letepsammia in 1994 , naming L . franki for her husband , Frank A . Owens . Both genera are in the family Micrabaciidae . Joan Owens transferred to the biology department of Howard in 1992 when the department of geology and geography was phased out , and retired from full-time work in 1995 . Later life and death . Joan Owens died on May 25 , 2011 . She was survived by her sister , Willette M . Carlton ; two daughters , Adrienne Lewis and Angela Owens ; and a granddaughter , Chara Johnson .