Ruth Hubbard was a professor of biology at Harvard University, where she was the first woman to hold a tenured professorship position in biology. She authored several books challenging the male model of science.

Born Ruth Hoffmann in Vienna, Austria, she escaped Nazism as a teenager, moving with with her family to the United States. Hubbard graduated from Radcliffe College in 1944, earning an A.B. in biochemical sciences.