Cardy Raper

Raper wanted to be a scientist from the age of eight.[3] She earned a Masters in science at the University of Chicago in 1946.[4][5] She worked on Achlya and Schizophyllum commune.[6] She married her college supervisor, John (Red) Raper in 1949.[7] She earned her PhD in 1977.

Raper worked alongside her husband, Red Raper, on the mating-type mutants of Schizophyllum.[6] Her husband was Chair of the Biology Department at Harvard University when he died in 1974.[8][9] After this, Cardy Raper began her formal career in science, working at Harvard University as a researcher and lecturer from 1974.[10] She worked in the Netherlands at the University of Hagen with Jos Wessels.[6] In 1978 she joined Wellesley College as an Assistant Professor.[10] After spending the summer of 1982 working with Bob Ullrich at the University of Vermont, she decided to move there.[11] In 1983 she set up her own independent research laboratory the University of Vermont.[10][12] She remained there as an Emeritus Professor after her retirement in 1994. Raper identified that the Schizophyllum commune had more than 23,000 mating types.[6] In 2008 there was a celebration of her contributions to science.[13] In 2012 she was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[14][15]

In 2017 she spoke at the Burlington Writers Workshop.[16] Her son, Jonathan Raper, is a Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.[17] She and Red Raper also had a daughter, Linda.[5] Carlene Allen Raper (Cardy) passed away after a brief illness at her summer home in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, on September 5, 2019 at the age of 94.