Elvira Wood (paleontologist)

She was born in Gouldsboro, Maine but grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended the State Normal School at Framingham. She earned a master's degree (1908) and a doctorate (1910) from Columbia University. Her doctorate thesis was titled The Phylogeny of Certain Cerithiidae. It was published by the New York Academy of Sciences. == Paleontology ==

Museum and education work She worked at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in the 1890s and again during the 1910s. In 1907, she began work as an instructor in paleontology at Barnard College, where she would earn several degrees. Her work was cited well into the 1970s. She became Curator in Columbia's Geology Department in 1909. United States Geological Survey In 1903, Wood became the assistant to Charles D. Walcott, Director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). She was a member of the Boston Society of Natural History and the National Geographic Society. Charles D. Walcott named the Middle Cambrian fossils Aluda woodi and Coscinocyathus elvira in her honor. == Publications ==

• Wood, Elvira. Marcellus Limestones of Lancaster, Erie Co., N.Y. Paleontologic Papers 2, New York State Museum, December 1901. • Wood, Elvira. A new Crinoid from the Hamilton of Charlestown, Indiana, American Journal of Science, Vol. XII, October 1901, pp. 1–14. Pl. V. • Wood, Elvira. On New and Old Middle Devonic Crinoids, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Washington D.C., August 6, 1904, pp. 56–84, Pl. XV-XVI. • Wood, Elvira. ''A Critical Summary of Troost's Unpublished Manuscript on the Crinoids of Tennessee'', Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum Bulletin 64, Washington D.C., 1909, pp. 1–150, Pl. 1–15. • Wood, Elvira. The Phylogeny of Certain Cerithidae, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIV, New York, May 1910, pp. 1–92, Pl. I-IX. • Wood, Elvira. The Use of Crinoid Arms in Studies of Phylogeny, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume XX, New York, 1914, pp. 1–14, Pl. I-V. • Wood, Elvira. The Ancestry and Descendants of Ebenezer Wood of West Gouldsborough, Maine, Springfield Printing and Binding Company, Springfield, Mass. 1930. == References ==