Kristine Elisabeth Heuch Bonnevie (October 8, 1872 Nidaros

Nidaros

Nidaros or Niðarós was during the Middle Ages, the old name of Trondheim, Norway . Until the Reformation, Nidaros remained the centre of the spiritual life of the country...

 - 1948 Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

) was a Norwegian biologist

Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

 and Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

's first female professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

. Her fields of research were cytology

Cell biology

Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

, genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 and embryology

Embryology

Embryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...

. She was one of nine children of Jacob Aall Bonnevie

Jacob Aall Bonnevie

Jacob Aall Bonnevie was a Norwegian school director and a politician for the Conservative Party. Born in Christiania , he was the son of Honoratus Bonnevie who later became mayor of the city...

. Her family moved from Nidaros to Kristiania in 1886.

Bonnevie started studying zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 in 1892, later switching to biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

. She completed her doctoral dissertation, «Undersøgelser over kimcellerne hos Enteroxenos østergreni» [studies on the germ cells of Enteroxenos østergreni] in 1906. She also studied under Arnold Lang in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 in the years 1898-99, under Theodor Boveri

Theodor Boveri

-External links:* Fritz Baltzer. . excerpt from . University of California Press, Berkeley; pp. 85–97....

 in Würzburg

Würzburg

Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....

 in 1900-01, and under Edmund Beecher Wilson

Edmund Beecher Wilson

Edmund Beecher Wilson was a pioneering American zoologist and geneticist. He wrote one of the most famous textbooks in the history of modern biology, The Cell.- Career :...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 from 1906 to 1907. She succeeded Johan Hjort

Johan Hjort

Johan Hjort FRS was a Norwegian fisheries scientist, marine zoologist, and oceanographer. He was among the most prominent and influential marine zoologists of his time.- The early years :...

 as leader of the Zootomic laboratory in 1900. She was a professor at Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet from 1912 to 1937, and founded the Institute of inheritance research in 1916.

In 1911, Bonnevie became the first female member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...

. Later, she founded the Norwegian association for female academics, leading it in the years 1922-1925. She established a study home for young girls in 1916 and a students' house in 1923. Her sister Honoria was the wife of Vilhelm Bjerknes. Kristine Bonnevie was a member of the city council in 1908-1919, a deputy member of Stortinget, the Norwegian national assembly, in 1916-1918, and a member of the University's broadcasting board from 1927 to 1937. Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

 was one of her students in the 1930s.

Kristine Bonnevie received the Royal Order of Merit

Norwegian order of precedence

The Norwegian order of precedence is the hierarchy of officials in the Government of Norway used to direct seating and ranking on formal occasions, decided by the King, which came into effect from 1 July 1993.I....

 in gold in 1920, The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav

The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav

The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav is a Norwegian order of chivalry that was instituted by King Oscar I of Norway and Sweden on August 21, 1847, as a distinctly Norwegian order. It is named after King Olav II, known for posterity as St. Olav. Nobility was abolished in Norway in 1821...

, 1st class, in 1946, and "Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

's reward" in 1935. The biology building on Blindern

Blindern

Blindern is the main campus of the University of Oslo, located in Nordre Aker in Oslo, Norway.-The campus:Most of the departments of the University of Oslo are located at Blindern; other, smaller campuses include Sentrum , Gaustad , St...

 at the University of Oslo

University of Oslo

The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...

is named Kristine Bonnevie's House.