Marian Diamond

Marian Cleeves Diamond (née Cleeves, born November 11, 1926) is a professor emeritus of anatomy, Department of Integrative Biology, at the University of California, Berkeley who has published research into the neuroanatomy of the forebrain, notably the discovery of the impact of the environment on brain development, the differences between the cerebral cortex of male and female rats, and the likely link between positive thinking and immune health.

Early life

Marian Cleeves Diamond was born in Glendale, California to Dr. Montague Cleeves and Rosa Marian Wamphler Cleeves as the sixth and last child in the family. Her father was an English physician and her mother a Latin teacher at Berkeley High School. Diamond grew up in La Crescenta. She was educated with her siblings near home at La Crescenta grammar school, Clark Junior High, Glendale High School and finally Glendale Community College, before going to University of California, Berkeley. She played tennis at Berkeley, earning a letter.

Career

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1948, Diamond spent a summer at the University of Oslo, Norway before returning to Berkeley for her graduate studies, the first female graduate student in the department of anatomy. Her doctoral dissertation thesis "Functional Interrelationships of the Hypothalamus and the Neurohypophysis" was published in 1953. During her PhD degree Marian Diamond also began to teach, and teaching became a lifelong passion that has continued well into her eighties. Marian Diamond received her PhD degree in human anatomy.

Personal life

Diamond married Richard Martin Diamond in 1950 and they had four children, Catherine Theresa (1953), Richard Cleeves (1955) Jeff Barja (1958) and Ann (1962). They divorced in 1979 and Diamond married Professor Arne Scheibel in 1982.

Documentary film

My Love Affair with the Brain: The Life and Science of Dr. Marian Diamond is a new award-winning documentary about Dr. Diamond's life as a pioneering woman of science, her curiosity and passion for the human brain, as well as her research and love of teaching. My Love Affair with the Brain trailer and further information can be viewed online at Luna Productions.

Marian Diamond has made a number of major scientific contributions to anatomical neuroscience. She showed that the structural components of the cerebral cortex can be altered by either enriched or impoverished environments at any age, from prenatal to extremely old age. An enriched cortex shows greater learning capacity, an impoverished, lesser learning capacity.

Diamond demonstrated that the structural arrangement of the male and female cortices is significantly different and can be altered in the absence of sex steroid hormones.

Diamond showed that the dorsal lateral frontal cerebral cortex is bilaterally deficient in the immune deficient mouse and can be reversed with thymic transplants. In humans, cognitive stimulation increases circulating CD4-positive T lymphocytes, supporting the idea that immunity can be voluntarily modulated, in other words, that positive thinking can impact the immune system.

A selected set of Marian Diamond's published books and papers can be found here.

• Council for Advancement & Support of Education. Wash. D.C. award for California Professor of the Year and National Gold Medalist
• California Biomedical Research Association Distinguished Service Award
• Alumna of the Year—California Alumni Association
• San Francisco Chronicle Hall of Fame
• University Medal, La Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela
• Brazilian Gold Medal of Honor
• Benjamin Ide Wheeler Service Award
• The Distinguished Senior Woman Scholar in America awarded by the American Association of University Women, 1997.
• Clark Kerr Award for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education 2012
• International House Alumni Faculty Award, 2016
• Paola S. Timiras Memorial Award for Aging Research from the Center for Research and Education in Aging (CREA)2016
• Distinguished Teaching Award 1975 awarded by the University of California Berkeley

• "History of the Clark Kerr Award" (PDF). Retrieved April 16, 2015. 
• "International House 2016 Gala". International House University of California Berkeley. Retrieved 16 August 2016. 
• "Award for and Discussion of Dr. Marian Diamond at BAMPFA". The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley. Retrieved 16 August 2016. 
• CalHistory. "Distinguished Teaching Awards". Days of Cal Distinguished Teaching Award. Retrieved October 1, 2016.