This week we are celebrating 'Black In Natural History Museums' (check out their website https://www.blackinnhms.org/ and follow along on Twitter #BlackInNHMs). The work the LSU Museum of Natural Science postdoc, Dr. J.C. Buckner and others have put in is incredible, and I've learned a lot.
One of the activities for this week was a scavenger hunt, and it inspired me to look up who was the first Black graduate student at the LSU MNS Ichthyology Section.
I joined the LSU MNS in 2008, and I only met my predecessor J. Michael Fitzsimons once before he passed. He had retired before I started my position, but I knew he had an African American student from a discussion with some other curators who had worked with him and via my former graduate student Valerie Derouen Stampley (see her video for Black In Natural History Week here). It is through them that I learned of Albert John Doucette Jr.
Albert John Doucette Jr. was born in March 23, 1948 in Slidell, Louisiana and received his bachelor of science degree from Southern University. He would later become faculty (1985) and Associate Dean at Southeastern Louisiana University – he held that position until his death on September 4, 2004 at the age of 56. He also worked with Tennessee Tech University and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1973 he was the first black graduate student at LSU’s School of Renewable Natural Resources getting a Masters in Fisheries. He then worked on a PhD at the Museum of Natural Science with Dr. J. Michael Fitzsimmons who was Curator of Fishes; Doucette defended his PhD on April 30, 1985 with a dissertation titled ‘Karyology of Lower Teleost Fishes’ (Read it here.)
There are 67,119 (!) specimens that he collected deposited at the LSU MNS Fish Collections. If you have more information about Dr. Doucette please reach out to prosanta@lsu.edu – I would love to learn more.
Sources
1- Southeastern Louisiana University profile
https://www2.southeastern.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/Doucette.html
2- Obit https://obits.theadvocate.com/us/obituaries/theadvocate/name/albert-doucette-obituary?pid=2586004
3- Dr. Doucette's PhD Dissertation https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/4048/
