Janet Davison Rowley (April 5, 1925 – December 17, 2013) was an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease. Rowley spent the majority of her life working in Chicago and received many awards and honors throughout her life, recognizing her achievements and contributions in the area of genetics. Early life and education Janet Davison was born in New York City in 1925, the only child of Hurford and Ethel Ballantyne Davison. Her father held a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School, and her mother a master's degree in education from Columbia University. Her parents were educators at the college and high school levels, respectively, and her mother later gave up teaching to become a school librarian. Davison attended an academically challenging junior high school in New Jersey and became especially interested in science. In 1940, aged 15, she was granted a scholarship to study in an advanced placement program at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where she finished high school and the first two years of college, followed by completion of her degree at the University of Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1944, a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946, and Doctor of Medicine degree in 1948, aged 23. Davison, only 19 years of age, had to wait 9 months in order to attend the university because their quota had already been filled for that semester. During that time only 3 out of 65 students were to be women in each class accepted. She married Donald Adams Rowley, also a physician, the day after graduating from medical school. He then went on to become a distinguished pathologist later in life. In 1951, both Janet and Donald Rowley completed internships at the United States Public Health Service's Marine Hospital in Chicago. Rowley continued her work throughout Chicago and worked in a clinic for children with Down Syndrome. Rowley worked part-time until the youngest of her four sons was 12 years old. Career After earning her medical license in 1951, Dr. Rowley worked as attending physician at the Infant and Prenatal Clinics in the Department of Public Health, Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1955 she took up a research post at Chicago's Dr. Julian Levinson Foundation, a clinic for children with developmental disabilities,