Jones, Barbara Althea

Dr. Barbara Althea Jones was born in the late 1930s in Barataria, Trinidad and died in Montreal in 1969. She described herself as “a geneticist by vocation, a poet by avocation.” Jones graduated with a B.Sc. in agricultural botany from Imperial College of the University of the West Indies, the first woman to graduate from that institution. She went to Cornell University on a Trinidad Government Scholarship, receiving her M.A. (1962) and Ph.D. (1965) in plant breeding and genetics, becoming the first woman in the West Indies to earn a doctorate. Jones came to Canada in 1966 to do postdoctoral research at Macdonald College. From 1966 to 1968, she taught genetics and biology at Marianopolis College, Sir George Williams University, and McGill University. In 1968, Jones was appointed Assistant Professor of Genetics at McGill. At the time of her death, Jones had published two volumes of poetry and had several others in press or in the planning stages. One of these volumes is titled Among the Potatoes, a wide-ranging collection that touches on many topics, including her life as a student, love, home, mental health, and race. She also published in literary journals and gave frequent talks and readings, in person and on radio and television. Her poetry and other writings revolved around the theme of Black experiences, she wrote in the McGill Reporter in 1968 that her goals were oriented "towards a new Black man, towards the full realization of man's consciousness and potential, and towards a new humanism." In an archived letter, she also asked colleagues to donate scientific books “for universities of developing countries where for some reason it is difficult to obtain texts.”

Revised on July 17, 2024, by Leah Louttit-Bunker

https://news.library.mcgill.ca/dr-barbara-althea-jones/